The Secret Behind Germany’s Record Renewables Buildout | As most countries struggle to install clean energy fast enough, Germany tackled the industry’s toughest problem: slow permitting. - eviltoast
  • UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    Some regulation changed, and that is great. It is now much easier than before to put a photo voltaic installation on your roof that has a peak energy production above 10 kWp. That used to be the magic barrier beyond which things would get drastically more complicated, beaurocracy wise. Tax hell, basically. So that is gone now, and my SO and me installed a 25 kWp installation on our roof because of it. But let me tell you: it took six month just to get it connected to the net. The local energy net provider did not manage to swap our meter for a two-way meter for six months. We were able to power our home with it, but we could not provide any power to the net. Just because that company was too stupid to click a button somewhere to send instructions to another company to swap that energy meter. That other company was here on an unrelated job a month after our PV installation was done, and I asked them about it. They told me they could theoretically do it right away, but they had no order to do it, so they couldn’t.

    On the other hand, very small installations (“balcony power stations”) are popping up everywhere, the kind that are 600-800 Watts and plug right into your power outlet. In theory, when installing them, you should fill out a form to give your power provider the chance to swap your meter so it doesn’t run backwards when you’re not using all the power, but nobody I know ever does that. I am guessing that that also has quite a bit of effect on our power mix.