this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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Europe has survived 3 energy shocks in 4 years. The only way out is to stop buying power from its enemies (fortune.com)
submitted 2 days ago by rikviergever@lemmy.world to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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Europe has survived 3 energy shocks in 4 years. The only way out is to stop buying power from its enemies | Fortune

https://fortune.com/2026/03/25/europe-3-energy-shocks-in-4-years-what-to-do-next/

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[โ€“] Nangijala@feddit.dk 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't know a lot about the subject so I asked my boyfriend who knows way more about solar energy.

Paraphrasing him, the short reply to moving solar panels into cities is a no.

The longer answer is a multitude of reasons, but the main one is weight. Most house roofs, especially in older buildings will not be able to carry the weight of solar panels. The return from having solar panels on roofs in the city will also not be as good as if they are in the fields because the panels can't move and maybe some roofs are placed in bad positions for optimal sun intake.

He also mentioned higher risks of fires due to the space between the roof and the solar panels, potentially feeding a fire with oxygen and making harder to put out the fire.

Due to the nature of a city layout, the solar panels would also be peppered out in a bigger area than if they were all collected on one plain field. This also means difficulties with maintainece which also costs more time and money than if you keep them in a field.

Keeping them in a concentrated area in a field is the most optimal solution for now. Maybe in the future, if solar panels have their weights significantly reduced, it will be a viable option to place them on roofs in cities. As for now, the best we can do with urban solar panels is to have them in mind when new buildings are raised and several contracting companies apparently work on this already, so things are happening. But many big Danish cities have old buildings, some are hundreds of years old. Its not uncommon to find houses here that are between 200 ans 400 years old.

I would like to add, that if we did like they have in the Netherlands and close down one third of our pig production, we would be able to secure more wild life areas that we have had in a hundred years and still have land for solar panels to spare.

To me it isn't an either or with solar panels and nature. We could have both. Currently we barely have space for either because the pig farmer take up all the space to grow pig food.

I don't think people understand how actually insane it is with the farming here. There is not one place here where you don't see fields. They take up all the space. If we shut down their industry, there would be more space for nature while the space needed for solar energy wouldn't even take up a 10th of land. I don't have the actual numbers of space needed for solar panels, but it would be ridiculously low. I am way more interested in having the pig food fields confiscated by the state and made into protected nature. That is where the true gain for nature lies.

Also: According to my boyfriend, the current energy production in Denmark which is covered by solar panels and especially windmills is around 60%. We aren't far from having reached our goal for sustainable green energy so the solar panel fields are literally nothing in the grand scheme of things.

[โ€“] Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Rebutting your LLM's points:

  1. "Older" houses in much of Europe are often made of stone, newer are frequently cinderblock, and the roof beams in both are massive. They're holding up tile and slate roofs - the weight of solar panels is a rounding error, and not the concern it is with shoddy US stick-frame construction. So if that's the "main reason" we're doing pretty well already.

  2. Sub-optimal angle just means the panel doesn't produce AS MUCH power as it theoretically could. Not that it produces none, and many sub-optimal placements are still financially viable. Beyond that, any south-facing roof available is going to do very well.

  3. Fire risks are again much lower on the very common hard-surface roofs. And that same space that allows the oxygen in also separates the fire from the roof, so the only things burning are the panels themselves and the fire soesn't spread as it might with a ground-based installation which, by the way, also has air under the panels and are often over grass.

  4. Higher installation and maintenance costs are partially offset by the fact that the cost of land purchase and taxes are โ‚ฌ0. That was already covered by the building's main use. Then you can add the social and financial benefit of keeping those fields in food production. Moving away from animal agriculture would not only mean more food available locally, but also for export as crop yields in other places fall due to climate change.

Finally, the whole framing presents a false dichotomy. This doesn't have to be an either-or proposition - both-and is an option. We can have solar panels on buildings AND in fields. We can convert growing fields from feed production to food production AND put solar panels on the former pig farms that can't support crops. Particularly in warmer climates (maybe less applicable in Denmark) we can even raise the solar panels a bit higher AND still grow crops underneath (Agrivoltaics)!

[โ€“] Nangijala@feddit.dk 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

You don't know what you're talking about and the fact that you discredit my boyfriend's words by calling it an LLM is pathetic.

Bye ๐Ÿ‘‹

[โ€“] Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 16 hours ago

Sorry about the LLM thing - I literally thought "boyfriend" here was used with a wink and a nod to mean an LLM in the same way that people on some forums say "my dog" to mean themselves.

As far as not knowing what I'm talking about though, I've spent times on both sides of the Atlantic and used both rooftop and ground based solar where appropriate (though not grid tied) to good effect.