Germany voted. The exploratory talks regarding the formation of a new German Federal Government are already ramping up. The demonstrations by the Fridays for Future movement in which more than 600,000 people participated in 470 locations last Friday impressively underlined once more that climate policy must occupy a central role in the negotiations. If the fight against the climate crisis is to be effective, the new Federal Government must not simply settle for “more of the same.” We need faster and far more substantial expansion of renewable energy sources.

The best way of cutting your electricity costs as much as possible is simply to turn on your home appliances when your rooftop PV system is generating electricity. The problem with that is that we are often at work or otherwise not at home in the middle of the day when the PV system is generating the most electricity. This means that we can’t switch our appliances on ourselves. That’s why we manage our home appliances automatically with the SMA Sunny Home Manager 2.0. It switches our home appliances on when the PV system is generating sufficient electricity. Read on to find out how we can use this system to save hundreds of euros on electricity costs every year.

Whether a pointed gable, tented roof, modern city villa, single-family home or apartment building, it also pays to install PV modules on the north-facing side of buildings. This delivers more energy yields and makes system operators independent of rising electricity prices. With the Sunny Design planning software, you can display up to six module arrays during system planning, allowing you to incorporate more roof surfaces into the design from the outset. We will show you how to do this (including with a carport) for north-facing installations as well, because diffuse light can also result in a good yield. The software allows you to easily design complex systems in a single step.