@impermanen_

Solar in Pakistan is a wonderful example of how things could work.

In Germany, 90 Page manuals on how to prevent citizen solar, government and courts not fully supportive of citizen power.

Owners doing everything possible to prevent installations

Discussions toward a regulation that would make connecting small solar systems ridiculously expensive.

Why, energy company's lobbying, probably buying support, aim, take away choice, maintain insane profits.

@Kerplunk @impermanen_

As someone who works in the energy sector, that's part of it but not the _entire_ story.

A significant amount of Germany's electricity production comes from renewable energy, and this energy production fluctuates depending on the weather and the season.

And it's one thing if your PV installation only supplies your own house - but if it is supposed to feed into the local and regional power grids, there _must_ be some sort of process on how to regulate it, or else you might face grid collapse.

All this is solvable - in fact, I think Germany's processes for this are already pretty good and getting better - but it's _not_ trivial.

@juergen_hubert @impermanen_

If a PV installation only supplies your own house no problem - if it feeds in to power grids, there _must_ be some sort of process on how to regulate it, or else you might face grid collapse.

Grid collapse, the argument often used against solar.

Problem
Company's and shareholders failing to invest in a robust grid, thus maximizing short term profits . Now demanding Subsidy's.

Despite immorally high profits.

My solar system is Portable, needs no grid connection

@Kerplunk @impermanen_

Again, a close household system is not a problem, but once PV is connected to the grid, integrating them becomes a massive challenge. And I am saying this as a thoroughly pro-PV person - but I have worked in this field for long enough to see how big this challenge is.

I don't know how the situation is where you live, but in Germany, expanding the grid is as much a regulatory and political challenge as it is a matter of mere "corporate decision-making". Building a stable north-south backbone grid that connects the wind power-rich North Sea coast with the PV-rich regions of southern Germany means you will have to cross a _lot_ of territory, much of which already belongs to other people, local governments, and so forth, many of whom might not appreciate massive power lines being built across their landscape.

The same is true on the local level. The small and mid-sized power companies around here are usually _not_ "raking in record profits" - if they did, they might not be as stingy when it comes to haggling over the price of the software we are developing. Yes, they improve the local grids - which, until recently, were only ever intended to transport the electricity in one direction - but that costs money to plan and even more money to implement. And while they can increase electricity prices to compensate, they need to make an airtight case for the regulatory authorities to do so.

And once you have improved the grids, your problems aren't over. Due to the fluctuating power supply, there is almost either an overproduction or an underproduction of electricity - so the companies running the grid must either order someone to decrease or increase production or consumption. This is _also_ possible and being implemented, but obviously the organizations, people, and companies who have to rearrange their production and consumption expect to be paid for these changes in their schedules.

To sum it up: While you should not believe the naysayers that all of this is impossible - it isn't - you _also_ should not assume that any of this is simple.

Infrastructure rarely is.