Balcony solar panels can save 30% on a typical household’s electricity bill and, with vertical surface area in cities larger than roof space, the appeal is clear
a mix of both is good, there’s arguments for doing local co-generation. Where you essentially turn a community into it’s own power plant, and when you’re talking about things like micro inverters, the cost doesnt really change.
Is it more efficient to do it at a utility grid scale? Yes, does that make it overall better? Not really, you still have to deal with grid inefficiencies, and maintenance, and well, you still have to deal with installations, so the cost isn’t that significant at the end of the day.
Solar is one of very few renewable energy sources that you can actually locally build and maintain on a small scale, no sense in removing that utility from it, that’s part of the reason it’s so popular.
Transformers, power lines, roads, trucks, and maintenance teams to move from large scale plants to houses also doesn’t grow on trees, but if maintenance in remote places doesn’t happen it can burn a lot of them.
Sometimes large scale plants make sense, but as the back up too microgeneration where the costs of infrastructure to move from unpopulated to populus areas make sense.
I am also a fan of less inverted power in microgeneration though. More and more of power usage is DC anyways. The need to convert to AC as much IMHO, but that is my far more radical take
These microinverters aren’t made of fairy dust. Doing this stuff at utility scale uses a lot less nasty minerals and chemicals.
a mix of both is good, there’s arguments for doing local co-generation. Where you essentially turn a community into it’s own power plant, and when you’re talking about things like micro inverters, the cost doesnt really change.
Is it more efficient to do it at a utility grid scale? Yes, does that make it overall better? Not really, you still have to deal with grid inefficiencies, and maintenance, and well, you still have to deal with installations, so the cost isn’t that significant at the end of the day.
Solar is one of very few renewable energy sources that you can actually locally build and maintain on a small scale, no sense in removing that utility from it, that’s part of the reason it’s so popular.
Transformers, power lines, roads, trucks, and maintenance teams to move from large scale plants to houses also doesn’t grow on trees, but if maintenance in remote places doesn’t happen it can burn a lot of them.
Sometimes large scale plants make sense, but as the back up too microgeneration where the costs of infrastructure to move from unpopulated to populus areas make sense.
I am also a fan of less inverted power in microgeneration though. More and more of power usage is DC anyways. The need to convert to AC as much IMHO, but that is my far more radical take