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Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

One of the reasons is, as the article states, that US companies have to recover higher costs to acquire customers.

But it doesn't say why. The reason is because grid power is more expensive in Germany: $0.30/kWh compared to $0.10/kWh on average in the US. Therefore potential customers are easier to convince to use solar in Germany.

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And, on the flip side, Germany has massive tax subsidies for solar power. It's a lot easier to convince someone to get solar panels installed on their roof if you can show them a tax benefit for doing so.

On a broader note, I don't get why we think it's a good thing for Germany to have this much solar energy. Unlike, say, Spain, the German climate is not especially well suited to solar power. It's too far north, as a country, and climatically, Germany has a lot of cloudy days, which means that solar panels are not really running at peak efficiency most of the time. Germany would be much better served by wind power, because of its advantageous position on the North European Plain. In a free market, that is exactly what would have happened. Instead, German government subsidies have unfairly advantaged solar energy, leading to an inefficiently high number of solar panels and underinvestment in wind.

There aren’t any tax subsidies in Germany for solar installations. There are subsidies, find out for yourself how that works, it’s not that hard. This ignorance about what is actually going on makes me very angry!

> underinvestment in wind

estimated electricity production for Germany in 2012:

* Wind: 45 Billion kwh * Solar: 28,5 Billion kWh

But isn't it better to put all your eggs in one basket?

Well, exactly - if there was more incentive for wind power, that number would be much higher.

Germany has an incredible amount of wind power, almost to the point of saturation. They are in the process of upgrading old ones to be more efficient instead of creating more. Here are some numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country

>Unlike, say, Spain, the German climate is not especially well suited to solar power. It's too far north, as a country, and climatically, Germany has a lot of cloudy days, which means that solar panels are not really running at peak efficiency most of the time. Germany would be much better served by wind power, because of its advantageous position on the North European Plain.

Wind power requires more territory per watt than solar and German population is dense just enough that wind power is on the edge of pay-off.

Source:

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_ren...

The notion that Germany is bad for solar is wrong.

If you check the insolation maps you will find that southern Germany is surprisingly sunny. Their cooler temperatures also help with efficiency.

Which insolation maps? I find this hard to believe. Compared to SW USA (or even the east coast), Germany's insolation is pretty bad. The subsidies are all the only thing bringing solar to Germany (or even Spain for that matter)

See: http://maps.nrel.gov/SWERA

I don't know the source of their data, but this map from BP Solar puts Germany on par with most of Alaska (and worse than anywhere else in the US)

http://www.amerescosolar.com/sites/default/files/insolation_...

I looked at that map. (It's rather pretty, too!) It shows N. Germany between 0.5 and 1.0, and S. Germany between 1.5 and 2.0. The g'parent poster commented about southern Germany, so that corresponds to Michigan, New York, or Washington.

Going off on a tangent, I lived in New Mexico (5.5 on that table). A friend bought German solar panels for his house. He then had to get an upgraded transformer, because it put out too much power for the stock German one to handle.

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