[varispeed]

So it costs £400 and can shave up to £100 a year - how it was calculated? In best case scenario you'll have to hang this thing off balcony for 4 years to break even. Will it be good after 4 years? I cannot see the economics of that. If it shaves £50, then it's 8 years.

How long do they last? How much maintenance costs (cleaning etc.)

Sounds like a way to stuff the poor with copium device. The rich will get minted and government doesn't have to resolve the problem of expensive electricity for another election cycle.

[rcxdude]

4 years is a pretty good payback time, it's a pretty obvious investment if you can afford it, and it's pretty affordable (with the added bonus that if you're renting, you can take it with you). Solar panels tend to last a pretty long time, really the only worry is whether the manufacturer has cheaped out on the electronics (cleaning is literally going to be wiping it with a sponge once a year or so).

(Insulating your house or getting double glazing, for example, takes a lot longer to pay itself back, and these are pretty popular home improvements despite that and the higher outlay)

[varispeed]

Can you explain why it is "pretty obvious investment"?

[rcxdude]

What else can you put your money into that will give you 25% a year?

[lores]

It doesn't give you 25% a year, because you don't have your investment anymore (or most of it, if there is a second-hand market.) After the first year you'd have a -75% return, after the 5th you'd be at an effective annual 4.5%, after the 10th at an effective 9.5%.

It goes up from there, but it takes a while to become an investment better than alternatives. Inverters start failing after 10 years, too, and they're half the cost of a $400 setup, I believe.

[tialaramex]

Technically it doesn't give you 25% per year, but I'd argue what it does is - for this purpose - better. You get free electricity which is estimated to be worth 25% per year.

If the Buffoon manages to blow up fossil fuel prices to the same degree Putin did, your payback time might shrink to 12 months instead.

[toomuchtodo]

https://magnifina.com/articles/rooftop-solar-yield/

[RobinL]

I see it more as a way for relatively well off people to do a little bit for the environment rather than any sort of solution of high energy prices for the poor. The nice thing, of course, is that the more people buy them, the cheaper electricity is for everyone else, so you're doing everyone else a small favour by having one.

I'll certainly be buying one, not because of the ROI/payback calculation, but just because it's fun to talk about with my kids and a nice thing to do.

Similarly, plug in batteries are on the way (see recently Octopus announcement). I'll probably buy one for the same reasons.

That said, the payback time also looks very favourable, especially relative to a full rooftop install, so you don't even need to be alturistic!

[varispeed]

Do you account environmental impact of manufacturing of this device, shipping and energy used to place it in the store, time spent on customer service, people transporting it to their homes etc? How hanging it off balcony will offset that? Isn't that just virtue signalling?

[rcxdude]

Solar is cheap in terms of environmental impact and embodied energy as well. The balcony and plug-in part just makes the install cheap, which is by far the largest cost of residential solar.

[crote]

Why would well-off people not go for rooftop solar?

[rcxdude]

rooftop solar installation costs are a bit higher, it's not as good a return though it does scale a bit better.

[jerlam]

Rooftop is also not an option for condos or apartments.

[ticulatedspline]

Yeah I question the overall economics. I wonder if balcony solar is a net negative for the environment.

If you assume the cost of a thing can serve as a rough proxy for the energy inputs of the thing then until you meet RoI you're likely negative (environmentally speaking)

casual if the RoI for these is 4-8 years. and some stats[1] show most renters don't stay in one place that long. Given that the majority of people move at least once inside the RoI period, and may not move to somewhere with a balcony that can set up the solar it's possible that more of these system will end up in a landfill than actually help the environment.

which isn't to say I'm against deregulation here. I don't see any real reason to prevent people from being allowed to set them up so long as they're safe. and certainly some people will get great use out of them. but I also don't think they're as categorically great as they're made out to be.

[1] https://www.redfin.com/news/renters-staying-put-longer/

[crote]

Why would they end up in a landfill? You can also set them up inside your garden if you end up in a regular house, or mount them to the outside wall, or sell them to the next renter of your old apartment, or sell them on eBay, or...

The panel is just a regular rooftop solar panel in a slightly different form factor. The RoI is so low because you are skipping the expensive installation phase. That's literally all there is to it. They'll last a year or 20, and you can install them anywhere there is some form of sunlight.

Energy-wise you're recouped the production cost after as little as 1 to 3 years. You have to try really hard to have a solar panel be a net negative. Just don't place it indoors or in your basement or something and it'll work out just fine.

[megak1d]

I just put 2 460W panels and one of these 800W micro inverters on my shed. Total cost was just under £300 delivered, inc £15 of cabling. In the 5 weeks since it has been online (albeit in very good conditions - heat wave, summer but mounted flat on roof is suboptimal) it has generated 156kWh and saved £45 in electric costs.

[benj111]

Is that plug in like in the article? Any recommendations for where to buy? In the UK.

[toomuchtodo]

Panels have 25+ year lifetimes. Anything after the break even is free energy. There is no material maintenance cost.

[QuercusMax]

You think a balcony solar panel is going to die after 4 years? Why? What makes it different from any other solar panel? They have lives in decades.

You're spouting tired anti-solar talking points. Again, why?