Austria apartment dwellers are increasingly playing their part in generating electricity by putting solar panels on their balconies.
Regulators believe the falling price of solar panels, which now cost less than half of what they did last year, will convince many more Austrians to start producing their own power, even if they live in an apartment.
The devices plug into regular electricity sockets and are limited to producing 800 watts each in order not to overload the city's electricity grid, which will receive any surplus power.
#solar #cop29
Regulators believe the falling price of solar panels, which now cost less than half of what they did last year, will convince many more Austrians to start producing their own power, even if they live in an apartment.
The devices plug into regular electricity sockets and are limited to producing 800 watts each in order not to overload the city's electricity grid, which will receive any surplus power.
#solar #cop29
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NewsTranscript
00:00Kamil is taking care of his local power station on his balcony.
00:06He's one of thousands of Viennese who recently installed the device.
00:11Regularly hosing down the panels clears off dust, further increasing electricity production.
00:17Installing the device only took three minutes.
00:20I'm just trying to keep my running costs low and this power station is pretty good for that.
00:25The 37-year-old says in summer he can reduce the power bill for his one-person household by up to 40 percent,
00:32which means saving roughly 20 dollars a month.
00:36Right now we are producing 611 watts.
00:42I've worked out how much basic consumption I have per day, including the fridge and the PlayStation's standby mode.
00:48I cover all that with this power station.
00:51In 2023, roughly 5,000 city residents officially installed similar plants, which cost around 300 dollars.
00:59However, suppliers believe the number to be significantly higher, as many people may not declare them.
01:05They believe the number of users will continue to rise.
01:09The Austrian government has just introduced a law to make it easier to install solar panels on balconies.
01:15Until now, neighbors could easily object if they felt it would damage the building's aesthetics.
01:20Now opponents will need tougher arguments, such as possible safety hazards.
01:25The devices plug into regular electricity sockets and are limited to producing 800 watts each,
01:32in order to not overload the city's electricity grid, which will receive any surplus.
01:37For individual households, we can already see that balcony systems can cover 10 to 20 percent of electricity consumption at home.
01:48We are confident that the boom will continue.
01:53Regulators also believe the falling price of the solar panels, that now cost less than half of what they did last year,
02:02looks set to convince many more Austrians to start producing their own power, even if they live in an apartment.
02:09Johannes Blechberger, CGTN, Vienna.