It's clear that hackernews is a DIY crowd and loves this idea. I'm pro letting people do whatever they want and whatever makes them feel good.
HOWEVER, I have to point out how incredibly silly this is. There is a reason why historically we have pooled our resources under the government to produce and manage energy infrastructure centrally.
Let's say these 500,000 individuals instead pooled their 1,000 euro (including installation & time) and funded one industrial-scale solar development.
You could generate a renewable 600MW+ (a 4X factor on what these randomly placed individual units will ever deliver in reality) for that money. And efficient centralized battery storage also becomes an option there.
Then your fellow citizens can spend time creating surplus value in the field they are actually experts in and also you don't have a 3rd world hellscape of outdated balcony solar units to look at out your window for the next 30 years.
HOWEVER, I have to point out how incredibly silly this is. There is a reason why historically we have pooled our resources under the government to produce and manage energy infrastructure centrally.
Let's say these 500,000 individuals instead pooled their 1,000 euro (including installation & time) and funded one industrial-scale solar development.
You could generate a renewable 600MW+ (a 4X factor on what these randomly placed individual units will ever deliver in reality) for that money. And efficient centralized battery storage also becomes an option there.
Then your fellow citizens can spend time creating surplus value in the field they are actually experts in and also you don't have a 3rd world hellscape of outdated balcony solar units to look at out your window for the next 30 years.