6 ms·

A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. The ROI does

A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. The ROI doesn't look as attractive in France, the US or Norway.

DennisL123 1y ago
In the US the price varies a lot by state [1]. [1] https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/
jcattle 1y ago
That is definitely a factor. But depending on your energy usage and how smart your home appliances are, you can save a lot more than 10%. I.e. if you run all your washing and most of the heating of the water tank during your own generation times you can potentially save quite a lot more than 10%.
morsch 1y ago
If you break even in Germany in 3 years, you'll break even in France in 4. Maybe faster, given the differences in climate.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jagermo 1y ago
Some good points, i have a few thoughts to add. Norway: yes, they are doing fine (80% EV, btw, so it seems you can actually use EVs in colder weather... I think the nordics are actually way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to sustainable energy creation, with norway getting about 90% last year from Hydro - super impressive. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway France: I think they might turn around, because their low prices are tied to massive subsidies (that are scheduled to end in part end of 2025). And, France has the weather and sun to be even more successfull. That would however mean a decentralization of the power grid and probably storage solutions (batteries, hydro or h2), something thats complicated and not sexy to sell to the public - one of the reasons Germany is so far behind. Our grid is stuck in the past and enough company lobby politicians to keep it that way. US: it is probably less of a pricing issue and more a topic of resiliance and stabilizing the power grid. It looks like rolling blackouts in the US get more, especially during the summer months (where solar could directly be used for the AC). https://urbanclimate.gatech.edu/current-projects/blackout-tracker/ https://urbanclimate.gatech.edu/current-projects/blackout-tr... I think it would especially make sense to run your AC on if you have a flexible plan - i remember so many stories of people suddenly having to pay thousands during peak times in summer. California, Texas and most of the rust belt does have enough solar to easily get by, especially if you add a battery backup.
- thinkindie 1y ago
  Norway gets most of its wealth from fossil fuel. While it's not Saudi Arabia nor Venezuela, and they invested in long term sustainability, it's not fair to everyone else to say that they are at 80%EV because they are forward thinkers, but because they have the money to do that.
  - jagermo 1y ago
    100 % agree. They somehow figured out early that its better to sell to the others and stay renewable themselves.
    - spwa4 1y ago
      Yes, like any other argument about Norway, the situation must and shall be considered to be that they are smart and progressive and forward thinking, rather than rich. It's "not" that they have money to burn to do the new fancy thing. It must be forward-thinking policies! There's a small amount of truth, I'll admit. I guess you can say that Norway's policies are easily a lot smarter than Saudi Arabia's policies. But what is always done is comparing Norway's policies to, say, Spain or France and declare Norway a progressive forward-thinking nation with great and working policies. In reality the opposite is true because France and Spain can't just fix big problems by showering them in money.
      - thinkindie 1y ago
        also France and Spain (and Italy, Germany, UK etc etc) they have bigger population, far more diverse one, far more decentralized issues etc etc.
    - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
      Yes, but you have to somehow insinuate that this is a bad thing without ever clearly stating a thesis of why it's a bad thing. Otherwise people might think investing in green energy, EVs and heat pumps is a good idea with good return on investment and positive externalities and should be done by any competent government.
mschuster91 1y ago
> A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. Part of that is because our method of pricing is different than it is in the rest of the world. It doesn't matter if you got a 3x50A or 3x200A three phase service, only during construction (because a 3x200A uplink will obviously be a decent bit pricier), the monthly fee is the same and very low (I think ~15€ a month). All other costs are rolled into the per-kWh price, making it appear much more expensive than in other countries. On top of that we have a ridiculous tax load because large industry is exempt from a lot of things and consumers gotta pick up the slack. In contrast, Italians for example pay fees based on capacity which means a home there will usually have 3x10A uplink, something greatly troubling EV adoption and moving off of natural gas [1]. Additionally, Germany is one pricing zone whereas ENTSO-E, the European Commission and the Northern German population would rather like to have two or three pricing zones, given that there is a serious lack of North->South transmission capacity, but our "beloved" Bavarian prime minister Söder plus his green counterpart in BaWü Kretschmann both try to prevent that as much as possible because it would send prices in the south skyrocketing [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ksqrq1/til_that_most_italian_residences_have_only_3_kw/?show=original https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ksqrq1/t... [2] https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/energiepolitik-soeder-und-kretschmann-beharren-auf-einheitlichem-strompreis/100148214.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/energiepoli...
- grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
  Yep in a lot of ways it's a failure of the electricity market. It's absolutely bonkers how much I pay for electricity while I sit in the shadow of a giant onshore wind farm in Brandenburg. Transmission losses are nothing at this distance and the turbines cover the towns needs many times over. But because of the lack of regional and dynamic pricing (and tax burden) we pay ridiculous rates. I think if folks could financially benefit from renewable projects in their neighborhoods, suddenly citizens opposition would fall apart. Maybe balcony solar is just a tax minimization play, in that the energy you get from panels isn't burdened by excessive network charges, consumer taxes etc.
weinzierl 1y ago
And it barely works out in Germany. I did the math for my small city flat with a small south facing balcony and got a realistic payback period of 6 years. The issue is not solar per se, but that tiny installations are not very efficient. It'd make much more sense to bolster funding for building sized installations.
- jopsen 1y ago
  A building sized thing has much higher installation costs. And you can't DIY it, it's not just plug and play.
  - weinzierl 1y ago
    That is true and it is where the regulation and bureaucracy comes in. I vouch for making building installations low friction and better subsidized. Security will make this never as simple as balcony plug and play but there is a lot of room for improvement.
- DrScientist 1y ago
  The other aspect of this is the reduction of demand on the grid - which potentially reduces infrastructure costs ( or reduces the rise ) and hence shows up in a reduction in electricity prices ( if not absolute, against where they would be ).
- martin_a 1y ago
  I think you should be better off. I did a small installation at my parents house with two panels at south-southwest-orientation with a 600 W inverter for around 800 Euro. Turns out those two panels have created over 1.1 MWh since the late summer of 2023. With cost dropping heavily, your ROI should be much sooner.
locallost 1y ago
Electricity costs 24c per kwh in France and I just checked and can get it for 23c. So it's not true any more. Once you factor in that one is financed by the state and the other is not, it was likely never true. Germany's expensive electricity is a myth.
pyrale 1y ago
Balcony solar is likely to make this worse, given Germany has low/zero electricity market prices when the sun shines. Balcony solar production means Germans don't buy solar from their utility when utility costs are low, and they do want to buy some when utility costs are high. Unsurprisingly, fixed contract prices are bound to be an average of electricity price at different times. With balcony solar, the times where it costs the least will be weighted less in the average, so contract price is bound to go up.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Germany needs more battery storage, full stop. It is rapidly declining in cost, it is fast to deploy, and it will soak up excess low carbon energy (both domestic and imported from interconnectors) versus curtailment as more generation comes online. > Germany’s solar industry calls for 100 GWh 2030 grid battery target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-solar-industry-calls-100-gw-2030-grid-battery-target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-solar-industry... > German battery storage hits 22.1 GWh in [2025]H1 https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-reaches-22-1-gwh-at-halfway-point-of-2025/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-r... > PV curtailment jumps 97% in Germany in 2024 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/03/pv-curtailment-jumps-97-in-germany-in-2024/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/03/pv-curtailment-jumps-... https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/ https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/
  - pyrale 1y ago
    Yup. Flexibility should be the thing that’s subsidized. However, I would advise against "balcony" battery subsidies, and I assume balcony solar is an electoral strategy more than an energy strategy.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      Lots of residential batteries being installed, as mentioned in the link https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-reaches-22-1-gwh-at-halfway-point-of-2025/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-r... above. > By the end of the first half of 2025, Germany’s official registry of energy installations recorded nearly two million battery storage systems in operation. This figure, now unofficially but safely surpassed into July , includes a gross power capacity of 14.535 gigawatts (GW) and a usable storage capacity of nearly 22.1 gigawatt-hours (GWh). > Photovoltaic home storage systems constitute the majority of these installations, with 1.967 million small battery storage units (up to 20 kilowatts) accounting for 11.5 GW of gross power and almost 18.3 GWh of usable capacity. > Small photovoltaic home storage units made up the bulk of new additions, with 251,948 systems providing 1.34 GW and almost 2.7 GWh. In the medium segment, 2,418 new systems added 117.7 MW of power and 160 MWh of capacity. > The expansion of battery storage is driven by increasing demand, highlighted by 389 hours of negative wholesale electricity prices in the first half of the year. Germany has also significantly expanded its solar power generation, with approximately 107.4 GW of photovoltaic capacity installed and over 7 GW added in the first six months of 2025. The future of electrification is distributed, broadly speaking. Distributed assets can be orchestrated to optimize for both cost and grid stability ("VPP" aka virtual power plants). Get generation and storage as close to the load as you can.
testing22321 1y ago
I pay 13 cents a kWh here in Canada. I got a 7.8kw system on the roof, payback will be 6-7 years, then I get $1000 of free electricity a year for the life of the system. I’m in a tight valley where it snows a ton Also got an interest free loan from the gov to cover the outlay.

DennisL123 1y ago

In the US the price varies a lot by state [1]. [1] https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/

jcattle 1y ago

That is definitely a factor. But depending on your energy usage and how smart your home appliances are, you can save a lot more than 10%. I.e. if you run all your washing and most of the heating of the water tank during your own generation times you can potentially save quite a lot more than 10%.

morsch 1y ago

If you break even in Germany in 3 years, you'll break even in France in 4. Maybe faster, given the differences in climate.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

jagermo 1y ago

Some good points, i have a few thoughts to add. Norway: yes, they are doing fine (80% EV, btw, so it seems you can actually use EVs in colder weather... I think the nordics are actually way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to sustainable energy creation, with norway getting about 90% last year from Hydro - super impressive. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway France: I think they might turn around, because their low prices are tied to massive subsidies (that are scheduled to end in part end of 2025). And, France has the weather and sun to be even more successfull. That would however mean a decentralization of the power grid and probably storage solutions (batteries, hydro or h2), something thats complicated and not sexy to sell to the public - one of the reasons Germany is so far behind. Our grid is stuck in the past and enough company lobby politicians to keep it that way. US: it is probably less of a pricing issue and more a topic of resiliance and stabilizing the power grid. It looks like rolling blackouts in the US get more, especially during the summer months (where solar could directly be used for the AC). https://urbanclimate.gatech.edu/current-projects/blackout-tracker/ https://urbanclimate.gatech.edu/current-projects/blackout-tr... I think it would especially make sense to run your AC on if you have a flexible plan - i remember so many stories of people suddenly having to pay thousands during peak times in summer. California, Texas and most of the rust belt does have enough solar to easily get by, especially if you add a battery backup.

thinkindie 1y ago
Norway gets most of its wealth from fossil fuel. While it's not Saudi Arabia nor Venezuela, and they invested in long term sustainability, it's not fair to everyone else to say that they are at 80%EV because they are forward thinkers, but because they have the money to do that.
- jagermo 1y ago
  100 % agree. They somehow figured out early that its better to sell to the others and stay renewable themselves.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    Yes, like any other argument about Norway, the situation must and shall be considered to be that they are smart and progressive and forward thinking, rather than rich. It's "not" that they have money to burn to do the new fancy thing. It must be forward-thinking policies! There's a small amount of truth, I'll admit. I guess you can say that Norway's policies are easily a lot smarter than Saudi Arabia's policies. But what is always done is comparing Norway's policies to, say, Spain or France and declare Norway a progressive forward-thinking nation with great and working policies. In reality the opposite is true because France and Spain can't just fix big problems by showering them in money.
    - thinkindie 1y ago
      also France and Spain (and Italy, Germany, UK etc etc) they have bigger population, far more diverse one, far more decentralized issues etc etc.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    Yes, but you have to somehow insinuate that this is a bad thing without ever clearly stating a thesis of why it's a bad thing. Otherwise people might think investing in green energy, EVs and heat pumps is a good idea with good return on investment and positive externalities and should be done by any competent government.

mschuster91 1y ago

> A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. Part of that is because our method of pricing is different than it is in the rest of the world. It doesn't matter if you got a 3x50A or 3x200A three phase service, only during construction (because a 3x200A uplink will obviously be a decent bit pricier), the monthly fee is the same and very low (I think ~15€ a month). All other costs are rolled into the per-kWh price, making it appear much more expensive than in other countries. On top of that we have a ridiculous tax load because large industry is exempt from a lot of things and consumers gotta pick up the slack. In contrast, Italians for example pay fees based on capacity which means a home there will usually have 3x10A uplink, something greatly troubling EV adoption and moving off of natural gas [1]. Additionally, Germany is one pricing zone whereas ENTSO-E, the European Commission and the Northern German population would rather like to have two or three pricing zones, given that there is a serious lack of North->South transmission capacity, but our "beloved" Bavarian prime minister Söder plus his green counterpart in BaWü Kretschmann both try to prevent that as much as possible because it would send prices in the south skyrocketing [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ksqrq1/til_that_most_italian_residences_have_only_3_kw/?show=original https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ksqrq1/t... [2] https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/energiepolitik-soeder-und-kretschmann-beharren-auf-einheitlichem-strompreis/100148214.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/energiepoli...

grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
Yep in a lot of ways it's a failure of the electricity market. It's absolutely bonkers how much I pay for electricity while I sit in the shadow of a giant onshore wind farm in Brandenburg. Transmission losses are nothing at this distance and the turbines cover the towns needs many times over. But because of the lack of regional and dynamic pricing (and tax burden) we pay ridiculous rates. I think if folks could financially benefit from renewable projects in their neighborhoods, suddenly citizens opposition would fall apart. Maybe balcony solar is just a tax minimization play, in that the energy you get from panels isn't burdened by excessive network charges, consumer taxes etc.

weinzierl 1y ago

And it barely works out in Germany. I did the math for my small city flat with a small south facing balcony and got a realistic payback period of 6 years. The issue is not solar per se, but that tiny installations are not very efficient. It'd make much more sense to bolster funding for building sized installations.

jopsen 1y ago
A building sized thing has much higher installation costs. And you can't DIY it, it's not just plug and play.
- weinzierl 1y ago
  That is true and it is where the regulation and bureaucracy comes in. I vouch for making building installations low friction and better subsidized. Security will make this never as simple as balcony plug and play but there is a lot of room for improvement.
DrScientist 1y ago
The other aspect of this is the reduction of demand on the grid - which potentially reduces infrastructure costs ( or reduces the rise ) and hence shows up in a reduction in electricity prices ( if not absolute, against where they would be ).
martin_a 1y ago
I think you should be better off. I did a small installation at my parents house with two panels at south-southwest-orientation with a 600 W inverter for around 800 Euro. Turns out those two panels have created over 1.1 MWh since the late summer of 2023. With cost dropping heavily, your ROI should be much sooner.

locallost 1y ago

Electricity costs 24c per kwh in France and I just checked and can get it for 23c. So it's not true any more. Once you factor in that one is financed by the state and the other is not, it was likely never true. Germany's expensive electricity is a myth.

pyrale 1y ago

Balcony solar is likely to make this worse, given Germany has low/zero electricity market prices when the sun shines. Balcony solar production means Germans don't buy solar from their utility when utility costs are low, and they do want to buy some when utility costs are high. Unsurprisingly, fixed contract prices are bound to be an average of electricity price at different times. With balcony solar, the times where it costs the least will be weighted less in the average, so contract price is bound to go up.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Germany needs more battery storage, full stop. It is rapidly declining in cost, it is fast to deploy, and it will soak up excess low carbon energy (both domestic and imported from interconnectors) versus curtailment as more generation comes online. > Germany’s solar industry calls for 100 GWh 2030 grid battery target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-solar-industry-calls-100-gw-2030-grid-battery-target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-solar-industry... > German battery storage hits 22.1 GWh in [2025]H1 https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-reaches-22-1-gwh-at-halfway-point-of-2025/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-r... > PV curtailment jumps 97% in Germany in 2024 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/03/pv-curtailment-jumps-97-in-germany-in-2024/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/03/pv-curtailment-jumps-... https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/ https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/
- pyrale 1y ago
  Yup. Flexibility should be the thing that’s subsidized. However, I would advise against "balcony" battery subsidies, and I assume balcony solar is an electoral strategy more than an energy strategy.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    Lots of residential batteries being installed, as mentioned in the link https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-reaches-22-1-gwh-at-halfway-point-of-2025/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/07/18/german-battery-storage-r... above. > By the end of the first half of 2025, Germany’s official registry of energy installations recorded nearly two million battery storage systems in operation. This figure, now unofficially but safely surpassed into July , includes a gross power capacity of 14.535 gigawatts (GW) and a usable storage capacity of nearly 22.1 gigawatt-hours (GWh). > Photovoltaic home storage systems constitute the majority of these installations, with 1.967 million small battery storage units (up to 20 kilowatts) accounting for 11.5 GW of gross power and almost 18.3 GWh of usable capacity. > Small photovoltaic home storage units made up the bulk of new additions, with 251,948 systems providing 1.34 GW and almost 2.7 GWh. In the medium segment, 2,418 new systems added 117.7 MW of power and 160 MWh of capacity. > The expansion of battery storage is driven by increasing demand, highlighted by 389 hours of negative wholesale electricity prices in the first half of the year. Germany has also significantly expanded its solar power generation, with approximately 107.4 GW of photovoltaic capacity installed and over 7 GW added in the first six months of 2025. The future of electrification is distributed, broadly speaking. Distributed assets can be orchestrated to optimize for both cost and grid stability ("VPP" aka virtual power plants). Get generation and storage as close to the load as you can.

testing22321 1y ago

I pay 13 cents a kWh here in Canada. I got a 7.8kw system on the roof, payback will be 6-7 years, then I get $1000 of free electricity a year for the life of the system. I’m in a tight valley where it snows a ton Also got an interest free loan from the gov to cover the outlay.