Balcony solar does send excess power back to the grid. If you have a really old electricity meter it might count backwards when that happens and you might be legally required to get it replaced before installing the panels (depending on local laws).

A battery that sends power directly to your entire household but never back to the larger grid would require integration with your electricity meter (not just plugging it into a random outlet) because you can’t measure the electricity usage in your home from a random outlet and know when to discharge.

Because when you release a blog post, you set the publish date to when you started writing, rather than the day it goes out? What?

“This guy” that Phoronix “called out” isn’t even who wrote the blog post you’re commenting on.

Why not larger solar panels above the electricity lines? I’ve seen some rather heavy-looking metal bars for holding up the electricity lines, maybe they could also support some panels, with minimal extra material use for mounting. Up there they would provide some shade (which should be good for the grass if there is any between the tracks, given that way too dry + hot summers are becoming the norm), and require much less cleaning to stay efficient.