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My North-East facing balcony doesn't get enough sun light. But it's an interesting idea.
Isn't wind energy better on balconies?
Hmm no,
- first oft all: noise. Wind turbines have moving parts, that attached to a building or even worse attached to a balcony creates noise in the whole building. Imagine the rattling of 5-6 ~10 year old, bad maintained, wind turbines.
- Second: the energy output is rather low. A 1,2KW turbine is about 1.2m/3.9feet big. That's in spherical, cause it has to be able to rotate by wind direction.
- Third: balconies are preferred to not have wind, but sun.
- And last but not least: blades. Every windturbine form factor has (fast) moving blades. If it's reachable someone is going to stick a finger in it.
If you're living more suburban and have a windy detached place to setup a small windturbine that's an option. On the garage or shed for example.
Sadly really small wind turbines are really ineffective and not worth the investment until you have a really windy balcony. If you only have a few square meters solar is the only choice.
But I'd still love to have a small windmill in my garden.
If everyone puts wind turbines on the balconies they might end up blowing the building over
Doubt it. Wind around buildings tends to be shit.
There's a reason they build turbines on hilltops and out at sea.
That pic is great, haha. Woman looks so smug.
By putting the solar panel at a 90 degree angle though it is much less efficient than e.g. a 45 degree angle.
Less efficient than not having them?
Wrong question. The right question is: is the solar panel able to be CO2 neutral (at least) or CO2 negative. We don't get anything out of it if producing the solar panel costs more CO2 emissions than it saves by producing electricity.
Before you ask: I don't know the answer. I was looking into this thread in hope to find it.
To be a positive impact, they just need to be less carbon intensive thans the energy they displace. According to the first results on google, (presumably utility-scale) solar is about 12 times less carbon intensive than natural gas and 20 times compared to coal. So as long as you're replacing base load and not utility solar, balcony solar could be as much as 10 times less efficient and still come out a net positive.
Keep in mind also that these numbers keep improving as solar panel manufacturing becomes more efficient and starts using more green energy itself over the coming decades
Most people don't care about being CO2 neutral. The real question is what is the ROI? Will the panel save that person money. If it takes 50 years to pay for itself, I'd say that's bad. 10 years is more standard. 5 years I say it's a no brainer. Though I suppose you can also argue value for utility, if that is giving her the ability to power something off grid that would be worth something.
In Germany those panels usually pay themselves after about 5 years depending on the price of the necessary electronics (don't forget the electricity meter!) and if there's also a battery.
You don't need a smart meter for this, just plug and play. If seen offers for complete sets from as low as 250€ in supermarkets, so almost everyone can get one and start saving some power.
I hung a solar panel vertically on my fence one time. It was facing west rather than south, but I was only getting about 3-4 watts on my 100 watt panel under the best conditions.
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The most have a 45 degree angle
Might be most efficient when power is in higedt demands, in the morning and evenings when everyone is using power at home.
I'm sure this is a good thing, but considering the vast majority of Germans haven't figured out screens on windows I'm not sure the appeal to authority in the title has the desired effect.
We have fly screens in our windows. Windows which can be tilted btw.
You also have the best shutters ever.
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this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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