A new trend in Germany is installing solar panels on balconies. It’s very easy for Spain to imitate him

• In Germany, the number of requests for the installation of solar panels on balconies has increased sharply

• This is facilitated by subsidies and the current state of photovoltaic panels.

Solar panels have been unaffordable for years, but the Chinese photovoltaic industry’s strong commitment has allowed prices to fall. It also left North American and European producers out of the game due to price floors and exports that Western producers were unable to compete with. This allows many people to consider investing in solar energy for their homes.

And the Germans are crazy about installing photovoltaic panels.

Panels as garden fences. Although the price has dropped, investing in solar power is still a significant investment. Not only will you have to replace some components if they are not current, but filling the ceiling of your home with panels is still expensive. For this reason, there are those who are looking for alternatives to cover part of their consumption. For example, placing solar panels as a fence in the garden to take advantage of certain hours of light.

And if your budget allows, you can always put more panels on both the roof and the wall itself, turning what serves to demarcate and protect your property into a source of energy. An example is Peter Helm, a German who got up

a fence 16 meters long and 1.8 meters high made of panels. And this is not just a whim, since it states that a 1 x 1.8 meter fence segment costs 77 euros, while a solar panel of similar dimensions can be purchased for 55 euros. Of course, this is much less aesthetically pleasing, and the hedge is damaged, although it is stated that there is another 50 meters of vegetative fence.

Or use the balcony. It is clear that with such dimensions the Helm case cannot be applied to the majority of the population, but there are plenty of houses with balconies. And if you don’t have the space to build a solar panel wall, there’s probably a few meters of deck you can cover. Without traveling outside of Germany, you can see that there are DIY stores that advertise plate systems specifically for balconies.

It is reported that the Bundesnetzagentur (the German body responsible for electricity, gas, telecommunications and postal services) has received more than 50,000 requests for new solar systems of this type. It is estimated that there will now be 400,000, up from 230,000 last summer. This is a very important increase due to falling prices globally, as panels of this type are becoming increasingly easier to install thanks to ready-made kits and because the rules are being relaxed.

There are limitations, but subsidies help. This has created the perfect cocktail for more and more citizens to bet on this technology, but subsidies seem to be the key. The government is offering assistance of between €50 and €1,450 to install panels in residential buildings, as well as other subsidies such as up to €10,200 if you have an electric car and want to install number plates. The program had a budget of $300 million and was exhausted with 33,000 requests within just 24 hours of its launch.

There are still some restrictions, such as only installations up to 600W are allowed, you need to apply for permits and have a bi-directional meter that can measure both the electricity you draw from the grid and the electricity fed into it.

Spain. If there are two things that Spain has in abundance, it’s apartments and sunshine. Like it or not, Spain is a country of apartments, and this can make installing solar panels difficult, because, after all, it is. depend not only on us. It is possible that there are municipal rules in this regard, for example those that exist for the treatment of building facades, or rules in communities of owners or buildings with a horizontal ownership regime. In a single-family home this is much easier, and an example is the EcoFlow kit we reviewed a while ago.

If there are no legal obstacles, the truth is that the installation of solar panels on a balcony in Spain is quite advanced, with completely autonomous systems that we can install in a few minutes and include a battery like others, for example from Ikea and those that directly promote them are energy companies. And this helps us save money, although the panels usually take six to eight years to depreciate.

European trend? The examples of Spain and Germany are consistent with falling prices, regulations that provide easy access to technology, and energy companies themselves offering these kinds of solutions. This could trigger a wave of similar installations at European level, but while things are much simpler now than they were a few years ago, the truth is that the decision to go offline (partially or completely) is still a challenge. a bet with some risk.

Let’s not forget that not so long ago there was a so-called “Sun Tax”, which included fees and restrictions, for example, installation in neighboring communities. It was repealed in 2018, leading to an explosion of self-consumption, but Germany has been one of the hardest countries to self-consume, and if governments come to power that don’t approve of current policies, we could go backwards.

In Hatak | I have a farm and I want to use it with solar panels: everything you need to know and what are the next steps