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Comment by ACCount39 | Hacker News Reader

Solar panels are getting cheap enough for grid hook-ups, installation and regulatory approval to become the bottlenecks.

Plug-in solar is suboptimal in many ways, but it does sidestep a lot of those hurdles. Not too surprised to see it on the rise.

Another thing that might be worth keeping in mind is that plug-in solar panels are often installed vertically - i.e. balcony solar. In which case the peak of the panel's generation is offset to the edge of the typical "duck curve". If it gets popular enough to affect the grid, it might get the solar-induced demand slump larger, but make the edges even sharper.

Would that make grid scale battery storage with its instant response even more important?

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Solar panel installation costs, at least in the US haven't dropped in 15 years. It's still $25-30k to install 4kW-6kW worth of solar panels.

Dominated by labor costs, right? It'll probably just keep going up at this point, even if the panel cost went to zero.

A lot of the "labor" costs are just regulatory/permitting in disguise. An expedited approval regime with standards such that, permits-wise, installing solar panels was as easy as installing an EV charger would save a ton of money.

Matt Ferrell just did a video on this recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3eEzdpi12I

This has me thinking about parking a box truck in my driveway plastered in solar panels and plugged into the house.

One of my neighbors has this, I've always wondered why it was like this until now.

This is significantly more over-built than what you are describing, but there is a company building along this idea[0]. Trailer you can drag to location, unfurl the solar panels which then charge the batteries. Being marketed for disasters and military.

[0] https://www.sesame.solar/

That actually sounds like a viable regulatory hack. Technically an "EV" with "V2G capability", but actually it's a truck full of batteries with solar panels hanging off it.

Your local homeowners association would like a word.

also a distinctly American regulatory entity!

Eh, it's not unique, it's just that the American ones seem to be so much more empowered, excessive, and capable of generating news and social media headlines.

The UK variant seems to have more traditional failure modes of "excessive charges for maintenance of communal areas": https://parliamentnews.co.uk/tales-of-intimidation-excessive... , but people are still capable of having the occasional fistfight or protracted legal dispute about the wrong kind of hedge in a more informal, adhoc way.

Following the great american "mobile home" tradition. Slap a couple wheels under any object and it is magically removed from countless regulatory rules.

Just lookout for tornadoes.

I've seen some promising results from solar fences. Because the panels are getting so cheap you can offset the efficiency loss by buying more. Plus, because they are vertical and double sided they get more sunlight earlier and later in the day.

A great explainer, but I can't help but notice all the claude-isms in his dialogue now.

Generally correct. Here in Washington I could get Signature Solar to ship me 31 excellent Canadian Solar bifacial panels on a pallet for $9200 plus tax and shipping (so add another grand or so). This would be 21kW of solar (plus a bit if bifacial gain kicks in), which is a ton - you could even do some winter work with that, if angled correctly.

This setup would cost north of $50k (possibly north of $75k, depending) if installed by contractors. Labor costs are extremely high here, since COL is extremely high.

Interestingly, in the UK you can get 31 JA solar bifacial panels for ~£2k+VAT including shipping (https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/ja-solar-455w-n-type-bifac...), so around $2.6k.

You're scooping up a lot of regulation and red tape in that "labor" bucket.

That's fair. I really meant 'installation' I suppose.

That’s absolutely insane. I just had 5400Wp of panels installed with 15kWh of battery storage and it was ~€12k total. The battery was a bit over half of the costs. That’s the total cost, hardware and labour.

No need for permits for rooftop solar and the only dealings I had with the energy company was filling out an online form to register it. Took maybe 2 minutes.

Confirming: This is "plugin" solar with no grid export capability right?

No, this is a fixed 3-phase setup with export capability.

What country?

From where did you source the equipment?

I just did the same in Norway but without the battery and 12.5 kWp panels for about the same price. Solaredge inverter and some Italian 450W panels.

400V TN 3P grid with export where I am paid spot. Had to fill in a form online that got approved automatically. The energy company (separate from the grid company) automatically detected my export and started deducing the sales of solar from the bill.

The installer had to confirm the installation to the Enova government entity to release my €3k subsidy though.

The Netherlands.

I just contacted a well-reviewed solar installer and they took care of everything.

Plugin solar (at least here in Germany) exports to the grid (but is limited to 800W at the inverter).

Plugin solar is entirely different.

My family got an fixed three phase setup with a 12kWp, 8 kWh battery (BYD) and a Hybrid Inverter (SMA) alongside a Level 2 22 kW EV charger for a grand total of 16.000€.

My plugin solar setup was a DIY with 1kWp of panels + an 800W inverter and did cost a total of 350€, including the mounting hardware.

Rooftop solar generally requires professional installation. Balcony solar, as discussed in the article, does not require professional installation and simply plugs directly into an outlet.

Depends on where you are. I can DIY the physical mounting parts of a rooftop install where I live (San Francisco), but a licensed electrician needs to do (or at least supervise) the wiring.

I do wonder if having an electrician come by after the fact to inspect it counts as "supervising", though.

Here in NM, you can take a "homeowner's solar exam", and if you pass (75%) you can do the full install, including connecting to the grid, yourself.

The exam is much harder than one might expect, but if you're reasonably competent with residential wiring, far from impossible. It covers a bunch of stuff that is irrelevant for 90% of all residental solar installs, naturally.

So, basically they make you pass a licensed electrician exam but don’t give you the full license.

you know journeyman electricians bring more than "passed one exam on the solar unit", right?

No, it is very, very, very far from the full electrician exam. Still a lot more than one might expect from the open book aspect, and the amount of the NEC it actually covers.

California just passed "balcony solar" but requires G99 certification, which is, of course, slightly different than the G98 that everyone else on the planet uses.

That’s wild. I’m getting 12x 450kW panels (5.4kW) and a 10kWh battery installed on my roof this month for a grand total of like €7k.

That’s the total cost including all materials and labour from scratch to a fully functioning system.

Is this Germany - is there a subsidy included here?

In Germany there is no VAT for solar installations - I'm not aware of any other "subsidies".

We (northern part of Germany) installed 7 KW panels with 10 KW battery for €15K in 2024. My neighbor is installing 10 KW panels with 10 KW battery for €18K this week. So it seems the total costs have not dropped any further in the last 2 years.

This is in Ireland, with a €2,400 grant. The non-subsidised cost would have been €10,000

I've always wondered if its possible to just buy and install the panels yourself.

Yes, but... I just did a solar install, the utility is likely to confirm you have a building permit for the array, and the utility came by to verify the shutoff works.

If you don't have utility approval to connect, you won't get net metering benefits, although you could offset active use (and if you had battery storage, I guess you could make it work). At least my meter doesn't run backwards, it has a count for energy in and a count for energy out. If we didn't have utility approval and had significant energy out, I'm guessing there would be questions. We have a fairly generous tarrif, and our system doesn't make sense without utility approval --- we generate on one meter and use on another meter and rely on meter aggrigation for the generation and use to offset, and they will offset 1 for 1, once the account gets fully set up.

You might want to check on that net metering. A lot of utilities are moving toward net metering for a specified time (10-12 years or whatever) then moving to net billing. So once you hit the time limit they buy it from you like you're a producer at .03/kwh or whatever their purchase/production cost is.

Well, we already installed the system, so it's too late to change :P

Our utility is still offering 1 for 1 net metering for new installs (accumulated credit expires at the end of March every year) and have not proposed a new rate schedule. They say that existing connected systems will be able to remain on the current schedule indefinitely. That's the best I can do for the future at this point.

If it does change for us in a negative way, I'll have to bite the bullet and buy an electric car and charge when the sun is up. :P Hopefully negative changes happen later rather than sooner.

It depends on where you live. Some places will let you do everything yourself (though you may need to get permits), other places will let you mount the panels but not let you do the electrical, others will let you do the electrical but require an electrician to sign off on it, etc.

I designed / built / installed an 11kw system with 55kwh of batteries in 2024. It was a fun hobby for a year, I loved it. Grid buyback is only $0.03-$0.04/kwh (while cost is $0.37-$0.42/kwh) so, not really worth it. We live among tall trees, but still managed to generate 75% of our yearly solar needs last year.

Permitting was new for me and it was tough to navigate alone, but definitely possible.

The US is getting fleeced! 8 years ago it cost me about $10k AUD to install 6kW. Yes, it came with a $2.8k subsidy but still we are talking about a third.. 8 years ago.. And I paid extra for a Fronius inverter.

US blue-collar labor is very expensive.

Homeowners are getting the short end, but the solar installers are doing well.

Australia pays their tradies higher wages than solar installers in the US, and still has far cheaper costs.

Here's a long podcast episode talking about why it's so much more expensive in the US versus Australia, with a solar expert from Australia that had just added a bunch of C&I solar here in the US:

https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-real-story-with-australian

Local permitting, utility fuckery, tariffs, etc. all add up.

As an Aussie you should know the American way, pay executives or management absurd amounts and the people who actually get their hands dirty get paid as little as possible.

I'm not Australian.

The far lower costs in Australia are not due to executive pay, it's due to basic efficiency. Americans are doing things in horrendously wasteful ways, because the system is set to act that way, and changing our system of government is too difficult due to political infighting. One of many examples in the article:

> These things are highly optimized that companies will try to do the scheduling so they’re doing two or three jobs on the same street or in the same suburb on the same day, so they don’t have to drive across town to do the second job. If there’s a delay of a couple of days, it’s because they’re trying to make sure that they’re going to do your neighbors at the same time they’re going to do yours. The thing that costs you money in contracting is what they call truck rolls. I believe in the US there’s something like five or six truck rolls per solar installation. In Australia, it’s as few as one or two.

See also the US healthcare system. Or residential building.

> Americans are doing things in horrendously wasteful ways, because the system is set to act that way, and changing our system of government is too difficult due to political infighting. One of many examples in the article:

What system exactly. Offices ?

> See also the US healthcare system.

The US healthcare is full of suits getting commissions and powerpoints.

> Or residential building.

Again suits and commissions.

It is well known in Australia that you can make a lot of money working as a tradie. Better than software developers do here that's for sure. You are lucky if you can get a tradie to step foot inside your house for less than $200 USD, then the hourly costs start running away pretty quick.

partly because there is a shortage in Australia of people with such skills.

You’re potentially getting the wrong type of tradie. What, are you calling Fallon’s or something?

$200 is about the going rate to get somebody to show up in the US as well (DC-metro, specifically). Maybe not for a generic handyman (though that's increasingly true as well), but somebody with a license and training (electrician, plumber).

The first rule of getting solar panels is never look at prices after you buy your system. :P

At least you bought them 8 years ago and not 20, you could have had a 1.5kW system for the same price.

We paid $17k ($12k after subsidies) to install 5kW in Arizona five years ago.

Your numbers are way too high. I live in the very expensive San Francisco Bay Area and my system 6kW before federal tax credits was 16k to install in 2021. After credits it was < $12k. I have a friend in Tucson AZ who just paid $12K for a 4kW system with no subsidies.

I did not add a battery because at the time it would have doubled the price. Also, because I have net metering the battery never pays itself off.

Was this rooftop or ground mount? Asking because I keep getting rooftop quotes closer to $20k than $12k

Strange, I was looking (in SF) in the end of 2022 for a 4kW system and I was getting quotes of $20k before credits.

(My installer ended up flaking on me, and then I gave up because NEM 3.0 was coming too soon to find a fallback.)

> It's still $25-30k to install 4kW-6kW worth of solar panels.

You mean "to have installed".

I installed 6.7kW for $12k, but did all the work myself (with a permit).

US installation costs seem insanely inflated compared to the rest of the world.

My Dad is getting 10kW of panels and an inverter installed tomorrow. Fully installed and permitted for $5k AUD.

I got 7.6kW fully installed with inverter for $8k CAD a few years ago.

Only thing more annoying (jealous) than aussie solar is europeans with 100g fiber for €50

That's why I installed my 13kw system myself. I saved a ton of money, assuming you don't equate time with money, otherwise it will have cost me a fortune. It was a great learning experience, and quite fun.

Same boat here. I installed my own ground mounted array at double the capacity for half the quoted price from the local installer, even with an electrician coming in to do last mile hookup. Learned a ton. Got a couple fun new tools. Already have my next spot picked out.

Same here. Not quite 13kW just yet, but getting there. Only one string. Built it myself and learned a lot.

$25-30k is astronomical! Just to install panels on a roof? Wow everything is the states is such a rip off.

No, just the things that make life better.

Free refills on soft drinks are generally still a thing in the U.S.

That pricing is insane. I had 11.3 kWp of panels + 48 kWh of batteries installed in the Bay Area a few months ago, for $40k (shoutouts to Potrero Energy).

I don't believe this is real. I'm in Europe and installed 4kW with 4kW of storage for a total of ~3.6k.

> I don't believe this is real.

> I'm in Europe

Wait until you hear about American Insulin.

Yet another data point: ten years ago it was £5,500 for a 3.9kW system. The largest possible on the "simple" permitting scheme. I did however have to spend another £1000 a few years later on retrofitting bird-proofing. You don't want to build a pigeon farm by mistake.

At that date I got into the feed-in-tariff scheme, and it has long since paid for itself just in cheques mailed to me by the utility.

6kW fixed solar installation in the UK is £8k.

$30k is mad.

That’s absolutely crazy, in Australia you could probably get a 30 kW commercial system installed for that. On my house I paid about US$6.5K for a 6.6 kW of panels and a 5 kW inverter, years ago. You’d get the same thing for a bit under US$5K today here.

For the price you’re talking about, you could also get a system with 15 kW of panels with a good 20-30 kWh of battery storage too!

I'm in the US and I did my own install.

It's the regulation cost that's really hurting us.

Just the required paperwork for the permit in my region cost ~2.5k. structural engineer was 800, architecture diagram was 800, certified electrician stamp on the plans was 800.

Add in the extra cost to facilitate RSD (~5k after mlpe devices, and extra wiring) and tack on the cost for utility interconnection agreements.

Then deal with the NEC requiring UL listed items with no/very little cross certification with things like CE which effectively means you can't buy equipment from China, at least not without a US shop taking a huge markup for branding/certs.

---

Overall, it's just a mess. I walked away from the project (completed, all approved) with a huge dose of skepticism for the permitting/certification/approval process.

11.2kw in panels, ~12kwh lfp battery, split phase 240v install - ~28k usd.

Of which ~10k was regulation driven, and doesn't change much by install size.

This is, as you say, absolutely bananas level of regulation. Here in the UK most panels are "permitted development" (bypass all the local government permitting entirely, as for small sheds and fences etc). There are two utility schemes, one for <3.6kW which costs £30 (G98) and a more complicated one that costs a few hundred £ for larger ones (G99).

"Balcony solar" (<800W) with absolutely zero paperwork (edit: I'm wrong, still needs G99) has just arrived to the UK.

Howver the costs per panel of the approved version is far higher than the same panels in Europe. You can’t pick up 400W for $150 at the supermarket.

The specific exclusion of batteries too is a sop to the industry. It’s a step forward, but needs to go further.

Is that the cost of the panel or the cost (again) of the approval? Do they turn out to be the same panels with a different sticker?

No cost of approval for plugin solar

Currently in the U.K. they have to have U.K. appeal not just standard eu approval. Hopefully this will be fixed by next year and prices will Be more reasonable.

Hopefully too regulators will Change to allow battery Storage as long as it’s not pore than 800W inverter.

So what I'm hearing is that when it comes to cheap, clean, consumer-empowering energy, the USA tends to regulate, not innovate.

A lot of people in the U.S. are trying to innovate. I think the problem is the fossil fuel industry has been paying government, probably for decades, to implement legal roadblocks at all levels, from individual homes up to states and regions, to non-fossil fuel energy. I think they've also had a hand, at least at the propaganda level, in pushing back on electric vehicles.

Personally, I'd love to see the United States, and the rest of the world, decrease its reliance on oil. We won't get off it in any of our lifetimes, but we should move in that direction. I like diversifying. Any bit helps. Solar in Australia and Arizona. Maybe less so in northern Maine. Wind turbines where there's wind. I personally don't have any aesthetic objection to them. I think they look kind of cool. And certainly better than smokestacks. And so on.

"Plug in solar" (as "Balcony solar" is called in here in the UK) needs G98, not G99 approval and is free for plug in (<8kw). This is just one form to fill out, and the DNO can't refuse approval (assuming you fill out the form). Think of it more as registration than approval.

Current lowest costs from national retailers that I've found (been looking today as it happens!) is City Plumbing - £336 for 475w, £480 for 1050w (panels with 800w max inverter).

Were there any parts of the process you felt could be reasonably chipped away at through improved beaureaucratic processes or lightweight advocacy?

I've been doing some advocacy work related to balcony solar mostly from a conceptual standpoint but am a renter and don't know much about the actual costs and process behind installing roof panels. I'm curious to know whether there are any low-hanging fruit we could organize around to reduce the regulatory burden on the consumer.

I paid much less than that for much more power in the US in 2023.

Funny. I installed my 2 kWp entirely DIY and plan to add another 2 kWp this month.

With the plugin solar I can imagine people in single family residential installing them on both sides of fences and gates to get an around the day benefit.

Also, with the price of solar panels decreasing below most (wood?) building materials with way higher durability, no paint required, why wouldn't it replace most sun facing siding applications aside from being "ugly".

There is a special place in hell reserved for the Karens who call PV panels ugly.

A lot of people call any change ugly.

> it gets popular enough to affect the grid,

The plug in solar systems are small and usually mounted in ways that don’t capture as much energy as the same panels mounted on a roof. These systems aren’t going to get popular enough to make a big difference in anything.

I think it’s nice that they’re available for people to do some small scale offsets, but I think they’re more of a gateway to better solar installations. They also send people down the path of investigating battery storage add-ons, which might actually be a better long term solution for everyone.

If we can get to a point where we can buy plug-in batteries that are subsidized by requiring coordination with the grid, the power companies could get distributed, controlled battery storage to work with their demand curves. This can already happen with the bigger permanent install batteries.

>These systems aren’t going to get popular enough to make a big difference in anything.

They already are in a few countries.

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