Balcony Solar Is Booming In Germany

In the last 5 years, Germans have installed one million solar systems on their balconies

While America was busy dismantling its most important clean energy policies last month, Germany reached a big milestone: The country now has one million balcony rooftop solar systems.

Balcony solar is dead simple. Germans can buy panels at the supermarket for as little as 200 euros and install them on their own. Plug it into a normal outlet and you're good to go.

The technology boomed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when electricity and natural gas prices skyrocketed across Europe. As energy prices were rising, the cost of solar panels continued to fall, making the economics of balcony solar attractive.

Over the last 5 years, Germans have installed one million balcony solar systems with a combined capacity of 1 GW.

Balcony solar is an unexpected technology in many ways. 10 years ago, no one would have predicted that a million people would slap solar panels on their balcony. But over that time period the cost of solar plummeted enabling new—and sometimes weird—innovations.

One lesson from the clean energy revolution is that when technologies become cheap, you can expect people to find surprising new ways to put them to use.