Solar energy bombards the earth every day. And, every day, more and more people passively capture it to lower their power costs and move us away from fossil fuels.
Train tracks, roads, car parks, car roofs, cemeteries, building facades… the list of structures getting a solar makeover goes on and on. Humans can be so innovative when we try to be. Plug-and-play systems are affordable and portable when their owners move. See Solar balconies are booming in Germany:
More than 400,000 plug-in solar systems have been installed in Germany, most of them taking up a seamless spot on people’s balconies.
New data shows at least 50,000 of the PV devices were added in the first quarter of 2024 alone. A boom born from Germany’s “very strong solar culture”, in the words of one expert.
Solar balconies are a piece of the wider energy transition across Europe, explains Jan Osenberg, a policy advisor at the SolarPower Europe association.
“We see them as a subset of rooftop solar, but also as something different,” he tells Euronews Green. “We basically see it as a trend to use all possible artificial infrastructure for solar generation.”
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