Its crazy that in 1999 "home solar" was a fancy, new millennium idea, and now we're still barely any closer.

Honestly, I think building regulations should mandate solar energy for homes.

Seeing fewer rooftop solar installations when I visit my home state (Texas) than I see in the one I live in (Bavaria) is a trip. Yes, I know that electricity is far cheaper there than here, but as much electricity as air conditioning eats, and as big as those roofs are (panels are cheap; it's the system that's expensive), it should balance out.

Anecdotally, a ton of solar has gone up in the last four years here in Germany, both rooftop and, increasingly, in what were likely canola fields for biodiesel along highways - at first driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the need to reduce natural gas consumption, but now by how absolutely cheap those panels are. Too bad they're not being made here...

My favorite installation so far: a large field in SW Germany, with the panels high enough for cattle to wander and grass to grow under them. The cattle were almost all under those panels, munching away - it was a hot day.

	▲	zdragnar 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Grid level renewables are more economical than rooftop solar by a significant stretch, and Texas has a lot of that, especially wind. The lifetime cost of rooftop solar just doesn't work out very well when you also have cheap electricity.

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geraltofrivia 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My 65yo parents installed Solar panels on the roof of their house in a Tier 2 city in the poor parts of India. So did pretty much most of their neighbours.

So i would have to disagree. We are significantly far ahead from the initial “idea”.

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realo 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe his "we" is more USA-centric than your "we".

It happens all the time...

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madeofpalk 8 hours ago | parent [-]

My "We" is Australia and UK-centric.

People have home solar, but it's hardly widespread. It's still a "fancy" thing to have.

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alias_neo 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the UK, it's expensive, and it's not the technology, it's everything else. I don't see how that can improve unless the installation costs come down, and I don't know how that could/would happen.

I had solar installed last year, at the end of the summer, it cost roughly £14,000 for a system that can produce 6.51kWp and with 12kWh of battery storage (about 10kWh usable).

The 465W all-black panels (14 of them) I had installed are a little under £100 each to buy off-the-shelf, that accounts for 10% (£1400) of the cost of my system.

The batteries and inverter together another roughly £3.5k, so, about £9k of that cost was not for "solar and battery tech", a good chunk of it, somewhere around 40% of the total was labour, and the rest in scaffolding. Even if we allocate say another £1k to "hardware"; rails, wire, switchgear etc, that's still £8k easily.

Even if the hardware was free, £8-10k installation costs seems prohibitively expensive for the average UK household, unless you were totally wiping out your monthly bills and could pay it off over the lifetime of the system.

I suspect part of the issue in Australia is the same; I believe (perhaps incorrectly) you have a lot more sun down there so I'd expect the scale of (number of) installations to be higher.

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jacquesm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You were ripped off.

	▲	homebessguy 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Absolutely. A local company is currently advertising 12 470w panels, 10kwh storage for £7695 fully installed with additional pannels fully installed for £200 each. /r/uksolar is a great resource for comparing quotes.

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geraltofrivia 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I guess at some level it is a matter of incentives. In their city, we have electricity 20-22 hours per day (used to be 12-18 when i was growing up) and we can’t rely on the state to provide us electricity consistently.

But also, due to infrastructure. Everyone who could afford it has had a battery and inverter in our homes since forever. Hooking up some solar panels to it is relatively straightforward.

I think there are also some state sponsored subsidies involved although I couldn’t tell you how much.

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dalyons 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

~39% of Australian homes have solar as of 2025. Seems pretty widespread

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aembleton 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would say 10% of the homes in my estate in Derbyshire have rooftop solar. We haven't gone for it yet because I still think the cost is too high. It might work out when electricity gets even more expensive.

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danw1979 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sorry to disagree, but we are not just closer, we’ve been there for a while.

You can go out and buy solar panels to cover your roof for a few thousand dollars/pounds/euros. You could definitely not do that in 1999.

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timeon 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Barely any closer? I can see it on every fourth roof in western Slovak village.