🌞 Balcony Solar: Tiny panels, big promises

Does balcony solar truly contribute, or is it merely a shiny distraction from more effective climate solutions?

Hey there 👋

I’ve recently come across the notion of bright, shiny objects in the context of the climate crisis. These are distractions that make us feel good but don’t significantly contribute to the solution.

I have long been intrigued by balcony solar, a topic that has become quite popular in Germany, which are lightweight solar panels that you install on the railings of your balcony. They don’t generate enough energy to entirely replace your electricity contract but do generate cheap, clean electricity during the day.

The prospect of generating solar power directly on your balcony and contributing to reducing our emissions is exciting. But, is balcony solar really a significant driver in decarbonizing our grid or are they just bright, shiny distractions that make us feel good?

In a perfect scenario, where you have a south-facing balcony that does not get any shade during the day, and install 600 watts of solar (the legal limit in Germany) you can expect to generate 460 kWh of electricity over the course of a year. This includes the sun-filled dreadful, gray Berlin winter. The 460 kWh covers around 14% of the consumption of the average 2-person household in Germany. If you don’t have a perfect balcony however, the production drops significantly. East and west facing balconies produce 30% less and north-facing balconies produce 75% less electricity than south-facing ones. And, if your balcony gets shade during the day, from trees or buildings, the production drops even more.

I wonder how many people have that perfect balcony?

Assuming you have that perfect balcony, and are on a typical German electricity contract, you would reduce your emissions, but only slightly. If we take the annual emissions of the average person in the EU, the reduction would only equate to 8 days worth of emissions. Despite the emission reduction being minimal, you would at least save money on your electricity bill over time, especially if you live in a place like Berlin that offers a €500 subsidy. But, wouldn’t it make more sense for those resources be installed at a solar farm instead, where the direction and angle of the panels are optimized to generate electricity in the most efficient manner? We need to maximize the productivity of the materials needed for our energy transition to avoid exploiting yet another set of earth’s resources for our gain.

While balcony solar does reduce your emissions slightly, it primarily makes us feel better. It can be risky to feel better when there are far more effective options out there. Switching from the typical German electricity contract to a purely renewable one, a two-person household could eliminate 1.2 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, equating to around 58 days worth instead of 8, a 625% improvement.

The more demand there is for renewable energy, the more large scale installations will be built, the more incentives there are to improve the technology.

Use your balcony for flowers instead. They capture sun just like solar panels and provide the sweet, sweet nectar that pollinators love.

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Until next time, much love,

Pascal Vilhelmsson 🖤

Photo by Jacob Munch on Unsplash. Drawings by me.

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Sources used for the analysis but not mentioned in the text:

• The balcony solar output was calculated using a European Commission tool for Berlin.

• Electricity prices based on my personal Ostrom contract.

• Emissions factors from Ostrom and Vattenfall.