In Hungary, we can also witness a huge solar boom among the population, solar panels are being installed on the roofs of more and more houses, but there are still unexploited areas in the field of solar energy. While balcony solar panels are on the rise in some European countries, technical reasons and construction regulations make their installation very difficult in Hungary.
According to current EU regulations, balcony solar panels or balcony power plants have a power of no more than 800 watts. They are typically light (weighing 10-20 kilos) and their installation does not require special expertise. Their place would mostly be where, for some reason, it is not possible to install solar panels on the roof. Most of these are multi-story buildings in densely built-up cities, where the size of the facade is many times that of the roof. At home, we do not see that our panels are equipped with balcony power plants.
The balcony power plants, which can be purchased for 440-1000 euros (173-493 thousand forints) depending on the type, have a nominal power of 800 watts, which enable the production of approximately 850 kWh of electricity per year.
This output can cover a quarter of the electricity consumption of a family of four.
According to an article published in Másfélfok, an above-average consumer in Budapest can pay for the price of a balcony solar panel in five years based on the hours of sunshine there. (For the calculation, the pricing of Elmű Hálózati Kft. was used, which invoices HUF 70.1 gross over an annual consumption of 2,523 kWh.) With the 800 watt output, household appliances such as vacuum cleaners can be operated, and even if they bring the maximum output, they still can’t do as much to produce energy that an average household would not be able to absorb.
For the time being, the only way someone can have a balcony solar panel in Hungary is if he does not connect it to the grid, but instead leads the generated energy into his own battery and distributes it among his consumers, say household appliances. If someone illegally installs a balcony power plant, the distribution contract may be terminated with immediate effect and the electricity supply may be terminated.
One more boom would be enough
According to Szép Tekla, associate professor of the Department of World Economics of the University of Miskolc, balcony power plants cannot be connected to the grid at home because the electricity infrastructure is not yet ready for this, and there has not been enough development for this in the last ten years.
“The biggest problem of Hungarian Electric Works is that they operate very much on the border, they were not prepared for the solar boom that took place. It was no accident that there was a moratorium for a while at home. The supply of the balcony power plants would be very small in comparison, but it could still cause voltage fluctuations. In Germany, the situation is quite different, if a balcony solar panel is registered there, it will immediately appear in the electricity provider’s register, and they can regulate it according to geographic number with their very stable IT system,” said Szép Tekla.
The economist also brought in another aspect, the poor condition of the domestic building stock. (This may now start to improve in a few tens of thousands of homes as part of the new renovation program.) According to him, it really makes sense to use a balcony power plant when the buildings have been thoroughly renovated. However, we are far behind in this, in 85 percent of privately owned properties, this did not happen. The technical condition of the buildings probably correlates with the state-of-the-art of the electricity network in them.
According to Szép Tekla, the fire hazard of balcony power plants is also an important aspect. “Nowadays, you can order balcony solar panels on Amazon or e-Bay, which are often products of Chinese manufacturers and do not meet the standard, they are not properly insulated. When a fire breaks out in a house, firefighters usually turn off the power, but they don’t know these independent generating systems. For the installation of balcony power plants, life protection and safety technical issues must also be clarified, probably an accredited electrician should check these during the licensing procedure.”
But there can be other counter-arguments against balcony power plants, for example, that according to some, they spoil the streetscape.
Recently, one of our readers contacted us saying that Budapest XI. wanted to install a micro-inverter single-module household power plant on the fourth floor balcony of a panel house in his district, which was also approved by Elmű, but the local chief architect did not agree in terms of the protection of the town’s image. If he had implemented it, he could have expected a fine of hundreds of thousands of forints. According to the rules in force, in the case of a flat-roofed building, a flat-panel solar panel can only be placed on the roof covering the ledge (officially attic) of the building, and in the case of high-roofed buildings, only with the same angle of inclination as the roof, wrote the XI. district, which also noted that: “In the case of apartment buildings, a uniform, planned location is a more effective solution from a technical, economic and settlement point of view, than a design that is unique and therefore necessarily results in different solutions for each apartment.”
Absolutely in Vienna
In some places, the restrictions on the protection of the image of the settlement are also understandable, but this is not a consideration everywhere. Vienna, for example, boasted a few days ago that 4,250 balcony panels were installed last year at Wiener Netze, which operates the capital’s electricity network. In comparison, in 2022, only 900. The installation fever seems to be continuing this year, 700 solar panels were registered in the first three months.
The installation is very simple, no special consultation is required, only a notification is required. At Wiener Netze, they check whether the user’s consumption meter is compatible with the balcony battery, and if not, they replace it. It can already be used two weeks after the announcement. And if it produces more electricity than the consumer uses, the surplus is simply fed into the grid.
In the countries of Europe, the picture of how they stand towards balcony power plants is very mixed.
In Denmark it is prohibited, just like in Hungary, in Germany it is easy to install, you can even get a subsidy for it, in Jena it costs up to 600 euros and there is little administrative burden, while in Finland it depends on the electricity provider whether to allow a house to operate the balcony solar panel. Slovakia also has the theoretical possibility, but as Szép Tekla noted, licensing is so complicated that hardly anyone takes the plunge.
Balcony power plants may be more popular in Western Europe because the proportion of people who live in rented apartments is much higher than that of private owners. If they move, they can take the solar panel with them, and thus the return on it will also appear with them. There is another buoyant effect. In response to the Covid epidemic, more and more places are requiring that multi-story houses can only be built with terraces and balconies. And these represent new potential surfaces for solar cells.
The Hungarians would put it on their balcony
Demand for solar panels at the top showed that Hungarians are open to renewable energies and to save on their utilities. One of the researches of the University of Miskolc, which was also presented at Mašálfofok, shows that there is also a willingness to accept balcony power plants. 43.7 percent of the respondents of the online questionnaire research were aware of the solar system that can be installed on the balcony, 78 percent of the respondents said that if it was only tied to free registration, they would use such a system. More than half of them would install a balcony power plant even if it were subject to a permit.
At home on August 31, 2023, the II. The mayor of the district, Gergely Őrsi, announced that they are taking the initiative to license the installation and operation of balcony solar panels, but it is not known what specific steps have been taken in this regard and what results have been achieved.
Szép Tekla sees that the topic of balcony power plants is dealt with in many places, it is also regularly included in strategic materials, but the reason why it is not more prominent is that it contributes only minimally to the fulfillment of national and EU climate commitments. “It would be important for more people to use balcony solar panels, because they can contribute to the development of energy citizenship. If someone becomes a prosumer (producer and consumer at the same time, merging the English words producer and consumer) becomes, becomes more aware, becomes an active citizen of the energy transition, contributes to the decentralization of energy production and wants to have a better say in policy decisions.”
