After watching some real life ads on YouTube lately about mostly Americans getting solar panels installed on their houses It's got me wondering if anybody uses them in the sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff pack? I used them in my sims past in fact when you use them in the sims 2 game you get a bonus cash back sometimes instead of bills, if you have them solar panels or a electric windmill on your lot then the game rewards you in game money instead of bills from the Sim government in which I find really neat because it adds some politics to the game

and with all this solar panel talk in REAL LIFE about something similar it's got me wondering exactly why this was a thing as far back as 2009 when The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff Pack came out

(hint) you can even use them on Apartment Complexes or Rental Houses and get money back to afford more rent or groceries too

Yes, my sim are putting them on their houses in my new game! Feels a bit cheaty though, they are getting a few simoleons twice a week instead of bills.

Often, when I play an island I often pretend the houses are run of solar. I tend to not allow bills in these hoods or newspapers so money saving doesn't even occur to me.

I only use them when my sims get the want to get one, otherwise I don't

Solar power is crucially important for any proper Mars exploration base!

I keep forgetting they exist so i've never used them. I need to fix that.

For a longest time I never knew where to find these solar panels in the buy/build mode despite knowing about this feature when the expansion came out. But never needed them since after a few promotions the Sims never struggle with paying bills. I started using them recently on two lots and it's funny when the mailman comes to give you a pop-up of earning $12 for the week. So generous.

I use them all the time. Every house in my game has them. I find them quite ugly, but with moveobjects on, you can place them under the roof and on top of each other and they still work.

Yes, I even use them in my fantasy-medieval neighborhood as money-making mechanism for the estates of my upper class.

I use them every once in a while, but I've run into issues with green energy sources causing a bug with rent and bills on certain lots (seems to be more common with university lots) in which the number will overflow and cause the bill/rent price to be 30k simoleons!

I use them a lot. Sometimes because my sims want them, sometimes because I like to pretend houses in a certain place are run totally on solar, like Jo says, and sometimes just because I love the idea of switching to alternative enrgy sources in real life too.

About why they were a thing in the game already back in 2009, I wonder if it really was all that early? The year I got AL, 2010, was the same year my parents installed their first set of solar panels (and a geothermic device) in their home, so I saw the same thing happening in their home as for the sims - they got a notification saying how much money they had saved and so on . Given that Sweden is usually early with new technology, but usually a bit behind the US with things that are expensive to develop, I think 2009 sounds just right in time for solar panels.

Edit: I wanted to add: just recently I used them for Eco-village in Unnamed Area. Eco-village is an apartment lot with tents or tiny houses where everything is supposed to be ecologically sustainable as well as economically advantageous. I like the challenge of letting the sims work their way out of poverty, but those first few days can be really hard, so Eco-village and its solar panels has been a real help.

All the time.

Even if they don't actually fit on my roofs

Nope. Solar panels aren't necessary. I don't care for them in game or IRL either.

But then again, I almost never use a majority of the décor in game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They are not decor - sims get discount on their electricity bills when they have them. Even when they don't fit properly on the roofs

Um, there are solar panels? XD

Huh. I just thought they were there to add to the environment score. Didn't know they had a purpose honestly. Maybe I'll add them one day to a build, perhaps in Strangetown when I go back to that hood.

Never used them for their extra functions, but I'd probably use them as decoration if I needed a solar panel for a build.

I use them in the Sims, and we've been tossing around the wish that they'd work here for far longer than since 2009, but they don't and can't and won't. As it is, we have a propane generator. Gotta have something to keep the medical equipment running when the power fails, after all.

Sims 2 solar panels are far more effective than real world solar panels, don't degrade, and don't care about orientation, hours of daylight, or temperature. Lucky Sims!

I tend to not use the windmills in game, however, because of the drain on my computer. In the real world, windmills would be useful here for water moving purposes, as we have pretty reliable though not continuous wind.

Wouldn't and don't tie any of that stuff to the grid in reality.

I already mod my game to make it more difficult so wouldn't want to use working solar panels ingame without a mod to nerf them. But for aesthetics, yeah, sure, deco panels would be nice to have.

On lots that I actually play I tend to only remember to buy them when my sims roll wants for them, but on lots I build it depends on what world they're meant to be in. Sometimes it's that they're the only one so they need it, but other times it's that they live in a world where green energy is used in such a way that it's available to everyone through the standard grid, so having solar panels on individual buildings isn't exactly necessary.
(I call it Better Earth. Just kidding.)

I don't use the solar panels because I don't have M&G, but if I ever do get it, I shall undoubtedly use the solar panels. I hope to add them to my real life house before long.

On my tiny island 'hood of New Desconia I have several wind turbines, and I pretend they supply the electricity for the island. I'm not sure where they get the gas for the gas cookers -- maybe it's bottled gas.

It is realistic that Sims using solar panels receive financial recompense. Around the time that the Mansions and Gardens SP came out (2008-2009) there was in Britain a very generous feed-in tariff. When the solar panels are generating more electricity than is being used in the house, the surplus is fed into the electricity grid. The house has effectively become a mini power station. It is only fair that the householder is then paid for that electricity, in the same way that a power station owner would be paid. Around that time (ca. 2010) this "feed-in" tariff in the UK was very generous to encourage people to fit the panels. My sister and her husband fitted such panels to their house around this time, and were well compensated for it. Subsequently the Government decided that this scheme was too expensive, and the current arrangement is much less generous. (But people with the panels still receive something.)

Europe was possibly ahead of America in this matter, but people have been talking about solar power for a long time. I remember U.S. President Gerald Ford being asked about solar power in the 1970s. He replied along the lines that it was a good idea, but it wasn't "something that could be done overnight". I don't think he noticed how literally true that last bit was.

I find it both commendable and realistic that Maxis introduced solar panels at this time, with generous payments to Sims who fitted the panels, to encourage and reward them for fitting the panels (which were quite expensive in real life at the time).

I'veadded them to apartment lots to mark those apartment builds as being public subsidized rental housing for sims faxing financial troubles or just starting out newly arrived in town with no job and no money.Homes can get them as well to build up finances if they want to and can afford it.I've only got UC for TS2 installed on the laptop and need to clean out my hard drive to get into serious play.

They were incredibly common in Germany at that time. You see them everywhere still now because a lot of people got them then.

I've never used them; I hate Mansions and Gardens, it's such a lazy unfinished expansion, and I nerf most of what it added. I wish I didn't have to use it, but I had to move to Ultimate Collection when I moved to windows 10, and now that I've done that I don't think I can move my hoods back to any previous game version. So I also tend to forget that they exist.

I use them a lot, for various reasons. Firstly, because who doesn't want to save the environment? Also, not only do you get money twice a week, you also don't have to physically pay bills any more, and the hassle that saves me is alone worth it.

I think they are even back in fashion now here in Germany. Might also help that the government has subsidized the building of them in the last years. I see a lot of new installations of them in my village. Anyone who build a new house or renovated one basically got themselves one, either for electricity or for heating. I wonder if they got cheaper since the mid-2000s or if they are just more costefficient now with the rising prices in gas and other fossile fuels most people still use for heating.