Some countries with state gas or utility monopoly will ensure legislation blocks solar power. Example Thailand has huge solar potential but cheap gas, so they block solar panel installations

Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.

Surely you can do what you want within your own home, so long as you don't hook it up to the grid?

I'm also not sure if this fits with the price restriction they mentioned. Prohibitions can't be bypassed by paying a higher price, unless it were to refer to bribes

The systems in the article are hooked up to the grid though.

They're hooked up in an extremely safe and responsible manner, but it's understandable that there are regulations about what can be hooked up, and simply not surprising that they haven't been updated to say "yeah, this is ok".

A lot of solar systems are set up to sell excess power back to the grid. It makes sense that these systems would have some regulatory criteria because you wouldn't want e.g. home solar systems putting power on the lines when the utility company has the power off because of a downed wire or active work.

It's also possible to have a solar system that doesn't do this. Either you have a battery system and if you generate excess power you only put it into your own batteries or the system is small relative to the load of the house so you're rarely if ever generating more than you're actively using and configure the system so the grid is only ever attached to the input side. This should not be any more dangerous to the grid than using a UPS or charging an electric car and if the regulations make it more difficult than that they should be suspected of malicious intent.

The systems discussed in the article aren't necessarily selling excess power back to the grid, but they are sending it back to the grid (possibly for free). Because they work by pumping power into a wall socket.

They do so responsibly (fancy electronics that turn them off when the grid goes down). But it is the case where you are acknowledging that extra regulatory criteria make sense.

I agree there shouldn't be, but I don't think it's surprising that in many places there are. It takes active work for the regulator to look at the product and say "this design is sound, we're sure it won't kill anyone".

It takes active work to do that but not to manually approve zillions of individual installations?

The zillions of individual installations probably aren't actually getting approved, manually or otherwise.

Not if the purpose of the regulations is to thwart them, no. But those are the rules that ought not to be.

Purpose, ought, shouldn't, shouldn't, sense. These are words of minimal relevance to regulations and bureaucracy, which have internal incentive structures that rarely align with any kind of human morality.

Suppose that it isn't literally impossible to affect what the rules are and then if we're going to attempt it we need to determine what they ought to be.

"Need."

If you want the rules that exist and the rules that ought to exist to get closer together, do you not need to reckon what they ought to be?

Well, if you don't have any such compass, your efforts will be at best ineffectual. But an even more likely reason your efforts will be ineffectual is that the change you want to make is to a point outside the possibility space determined by the internal incentive structures of the institution.

Analogously, you might reckon that the best place for a nickel mine would be on 16 Psyche, because that's where the largest surface nickel deposits are. Or you might reckon that it would be good for an interpreter to give an error when the user attempts to run an infinite loop. But, lacking an interplanetary spaceship or a solution to the Halting Problem, these calculations are of little value.

The most effective response I've found to regulations that harm me is to leave.

True, the cut of 19% VAT on panels, inverters (which is applicable to any household PV installation, not only on the balcony) are a subsidy but in the meantime prices came down so much that it’s not really relevant anymore. (440 Wp panels go for 60 EURO a piece and a 800 W Hoymiles inverter for around 120 so total subsidy is around 50 EURO.) Other subsidies paid for by the communal bodies are long gone. Cutting the VAT helped to accelerate diffusion but that is what subsidies are made for. Probably the simplification of the registration process is by far more important. And last but not least the VAT cut for solar is a rounding error compared to the subsidies of ICE car traffic.

While I sort of agree that VAT exemption is a sort of subsidy it's important to remember that all other power generation typically receives the same "subsidy" because it's done by companies which don't pay VAT.

By definition, only the end customer pays VAT. But also on grid power in Germany. So no subsidy here.

That's sort of my point. You are essentially getting to parity to a grid operator, who does not pay VAT.

I see, but the grid operator has to collect the VAT for every kWh from the customer. I don’t pay VAT for my balcony PV and also not for the energy I get from it. That is not parity, I as a producer have an advantage here.

This is a good point.

Yes true, vat exception is an advantage.

Are those retail prices? Are you buying them in a store, or what? 440Wp/60€ is only 0.136€/Wp, which is higher than the wholesale 0.100€/Wp price reported on Solarserver, but only barely.

The word "diffusion" does get used in this way in English, but many native English speakers may be unfamiliar with it.

Yeah retail prices. And yes you can buy them in a store like home depot or order them on the internet but shipping is prohibitively expensive for small amounts. Cheapest source are local firms that install PV professionally and sell via kleinanzeigen.de as a side business or to get rid of excess stock.

Thanks for the clarification, also on the use of the word diffusion. In social sciences it is common though, there is even a book titled “Diffusion of Innovations”.

Thank you very much! Yes, it's more than a book, it's a whole intellectual movement, although maybe not a very lively one anymore.

Panels etc. have become really cheap now: https://www.globus-baumarkt.de/p/schwaiger-balkonkraftwerk-8...

That's 0,38 Euro/W of panel power, including inverter and cable. And there might be a solid price uptick on that because of the shop that's selling it. Wholesale from specialized shops is probably much cheaper...

Just for the record, that seems to be an 860Wp "Schwaiger Balkonkraftwerk 860 Wp Wifi fähig" for €325, "inkl. gesetzl. MwSt.", but not including "Versand- & Lieferbedingungen + 99,99 € Versandkosten". So it's €424.99, which is €0.494 per peak watt, about five or ten times the wholesale price of just the solar module.

Yes, but you could also just drive to one of the roughly 2.000 home and garden markets and just take one of the sets home with you in your car. Or get yourself cables and an inverter and buy the cheapest panels you can find, maybe even used ones.

The thing is: Prices are falling fast and that's great for everybody.