One of the photos shows a patch of solar cells with a shadow cast by a wire. Maybe the tech has moved on but it used to be if you did that, significantly less power was produced because of cell serial chaining effects.

Tiny things can have huge impact. Maybe microcontrollers and defective cell isolation methods remediate for this.

Or, maybe it was never true?

There is a bill to enable "balcony solar" wending its way through the NY state senate.

https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8512/amendm...

https://www.brightsaver.org/ is the US advocacy group advocating for balcony solar in the US