But it’s hard to think of a better urban area than parking. Besides being irritating to the eyes, they are often quite large, meaning they have great energy-generating potential.
According to a year 2021 research Co-authored Pearce, installing solar panels in the parking lots of 3,751 Walmart megacenters spread across the United States could generate the same amount of electricity as about a dozen coal-fired power plants. (Even if you take into account the part-time nature of solar energy, Pearce believes you could permanently shut down two, maybe even three such plants in sunnier areas if you cover the This Walmart lot.) In France, the government believes that solar roofs can generate up to 11 gigawatts of renewable energy, or the equivalent of 10 nuclear reactors. It’s a about 8 percent the entire electricity production of the country.
Installing a solar roof can also be helpful for motorists. They will provide shade during warm weather, potentially reducing the need for air conditioning when people get into their cars, while in winter they will provide shelter from the rain. and snow. If the vehicles parked underneath them are electric, the energy generated can also be directed to these cars. Currently, most commuters charge their electric vehicles at home, outside of regular business hours. The freedom to charge when shopping or at work can allow them to skip peak rates.
Connecting parked EVs to photovoltaic canopies can even help balance the grid. Because the traditional grid is incapable of storing energy, the power supplied to it must match the power consumed—too much power on the grid is a problem. With solar, especially during peak hours of sunshine, this can mean shutting down production. But if you can store excess energy in an on-site EV battery, you can maximize the potential of solar power during peak generation times.
“During the day, they can store energy,” says Nathanson of the parked electric cars. “During peak electricity consumption times, around the early evening hours, they can supply power back to the grid.” Using so many stand-alone devices in conjunction with the grid—and ensuring that no one is short of energy—will require a large amount of intelligent automation. It will also need two-way charger, which at the moment is not widely used. But the potential to get smarter with solar is there.
However, not every parking lot can be turned into a power plant. In some places there can be too much shade, perhaps due to tall buildings nearby. In countries to the north of the globe, where the sun is lower on the horizon, long shadows will be a bigger problem, especially in winter. In others, the panels could reflect sunlight onto nearby buildings or worse, roads, says Dylan Ryan, lecturer in mechanical and energy engineering at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland, warning. “Are we going to shine sunlight into the eyes of the people working across the street?”
The biggest concern, however, is cost: Installing a solar panel above the parking space will be costly. several times more than installing one on the ground or on the roof because of the need to build a supporting structure. (These costs are likely to be greater in the UK than in Southern Europe, because the parking lots there don’t have sunshades.) One of the lingering questions over the French proposal is the cost How will the parking operator pay for these installations? Without subsidies, Pearce said, it’s hard to imagine too many operators installing optional solar roofs, because investment is required.
Parking operators can, of course, recoup their initial investment by charging customers to plug in their electric vehicles, or they can use electricity themselves in any business where the parking lot is located. Their parking is in service. Or electricity can just be sold back to the grid. “Whether you’re just selling electricity to the grid or just using it in your business, you’ll generally pay less for electricity,” says Pearce.
This does not mean that solar farms belong only to urban areas. But there is a clear benefit to having more solar power generated closer to where people live—and the obvious need is to find a way to do this without being hindered by Nimbyism. Using car parks for solar farms solves this problem, and on that basis, French legislation is a step in the right direction, albeit aggressive. “You are taking advantage of what is essentially free real estate,” says Ryan.
