Are Balcony Solar Panels are useful in apartments? Millions of renters and apartment owners are at a loss for not being able to take advantage of solar as they don’t have a roof to put their solar power system on. A typical solar installation requires a big budget and a private roof. One can overcome these difficulties by installing easy solar bracket solar panels on window sills and balconies.

Advantages

Installing solar panels on the balcony can be done on one’s own. It doesn’t require any help from solar installers. The balcony should be south-facing if you are living in the northern hemisphere.

Another advantage of such an installation is that we can take the solar PV with us when we are moving out of that apartment.

This system is simple because it is not tied to the apartment’s behind-the-meter electrical grid. That means the system is clean and easy to install.

Things to consider

As a safety measure, it would be ideal to have a custom-made supporting structure in the balcony to securely lock the panels in place.

The size of the balcony determines the size and number of panels. The larger the panel, the lower the price per watt is.

Larger panels of 320 or 360W are available but they are rather bulky and heavy, 160 watts would be optimal. The size of such a panel is 150x70cm, and the weight is 12.5kg.

An inverter with 22–60V input voltage would be ideal to connect two panels in series. Microinverter also can use instead of regular inverters.

Inverter

Solar PV produces energy. There should be a means to store that energy as direct current. Inverter converts DC to AC. A battery, which stores energy, should also be connected to the system. A solar panel charge controller is required for any solar panel array rated 12-Watts or higher.