Michael has a natural interest in solar PV, but he did not have a house where he could install his own solar system. Instead, he decided to install a balcony solar system. Michael stumbled upon the company We Do Solar, who are based in Berlin and offer balcony solar systems that can be installed directly to a balcony or terrace to allow apartment owners and renters to generate their own solar energy. He was instantly hooked by their simple and sleek solution.
Michael installed his balcony solar system in September 2022. In total, he has 8 panels of 600Wp. Although the panels are relatively new, and there is not yet enough data to calculate the exact savings, Michael estimates that the solar panels save him 15% on his energy bills on average per year, in total €200 savings in direct consumption. This would mean that his balcony solar system would have a payback time of 5 years.
The best that Michael has seen in production so far is 2kW/day. As his current daily consumption is roughly 6kW, he covers 1/3rd of this with the solar energy produced. Obviously this is only the case if he adapts his consumption behaviour, for example, running the washing machine or dishwasher only when the solar system produces energy and not during the night.
"We as Europeans need to start to think big! We have with Germany the world's first major renewable energy economy, but we are not setting the right incentives, thus risk missing the goals that we set ourselves as a society. I see 3 major scaling roadblocks: material availability & geo-political dependencies, bureaucracy and workforce availability. I want to highlight the last point, as an upgrade in public perception of skilled workers is essential to get more people interested in making the energy transition become reality!"
