How Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels
How Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels
Meet balkonkraftwerk, the simple technology putting solar power in the hands of renters and nudging Germany toward its clean energy goals.
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Yess, the new regulations are awesome! Especially the recent simplification of the MaStR (Marktstammdatenregister) System has made everything easier for anyone involved.
But... just a heads up, if you don't register your balcony panel, we can and do find you using satellite pictures 🔫🙂You have to declare that you have a solar panel to the government?
If it can feed back to the grid, it can be a safety issue for electrical workers. Having them know about this stuff before they mess with lines is the safe way to do it.
Yup, the reason is that undocumented solar panels plugged into the Grid could cause seriously dangerous power spikes and throw off calculations on how much Suppliers need to feed into the Grid. So the only panels that don't have to be declared and registered with MaStR are ones on top of cars and ones that are so remote that you couldn't plug them in in any case (but Germany has basically no places remote enough to meet that criteria)
Hmm interesting. What about solar panels that aren't connected to the grid? Can you register them as such?
I have no intention of backfeeding into the grid but want to power a home battery with a solar panel or two.
Solar panels that cannot be connected to the grid don't have to be declared, but it is based on ability, not intention. So a solar panel so far away from civilization that you physically couldn't connect it is fine, but if it's at your house and you could connect it, then you have to register it. (Registration is a 5min online form though, it's very hassle-free for a system that the German Government came up with lol)