Weights, Measures, and Esoterica: Now is the time for PLUGS-In

PLUGS-In: Parking Lot Urban Grid Solar Infrastructure

What if I told you that I’ve conceived a plan that would be good for our economy, would help address our country’s energy needs, would reduce our carbon emissions that can potentially cause dangerous climate change, and it even makes shoppers and commuters happy?

What if I added that this plan has virtually no downside? Would you believe me?

Well, you should. I’ve thought over this plan for quite awhile (though clearly I'm not the only one). And while there are logistical considerations, it accomplishes a lot, with minimal sacrifice, and major upsides for both individuals and businesses. And the economy. And the global climate.

I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but there are solar panel “farms” going up in many parts of the country. The deployments that I’ve seen are relatively small-scale. To really have an impact on our energy generation, we need a LOT more. But where can they go?

The answer is (if you haven’t already guessed from the title): parking lots.

This country has a very big area devoted to parking lots. I found one reference (given at the end) that the amount of land devoted to parking lots nationwide is about equal to the surface area of the island of Puerto Rico. That same estimate indicates that they are about 800 million parking spaces.

Now, this doesn’t apply to parking garages, especially underground, and it would only work on the top exposed floor of an above-ground parking garage. But that’s not really important. There is a huge acreage devoted to surface parking lots in the country, and one good thing about them is that there tends to be more of them where more people are – cities and suburbs. Which is another reason this plan can work.

I don’t mean to sustain the suspense, so here’s the basics, and then I’ll get into all the reasons that this is a good idea. Simply put, the plan is this: put up solar panel canopies over the hundreds of square miles of parking lots in the United States to generate electricity. And that’s what the name says: Parking Lot Urban Grid Solar Infrastructure, or PLUGS-In.

Here’s a basic example. In many suburbs (and some parts of cities), there are small shopping centers with a grocery store as the anchor store. So you might have a grocery store, a dry cleaner, a Chinese food restaurant, a UPS store, a liquor store, a Dunkin Donuts (or the equivalent), a beauty salon, and a couple of others. And the buildings of the shopping center are arranged around a large central parking lot. Now, grocery stores are energy hogs. They have a lot of lighting and a lot of refrigeration, and that refrigeration is on 24 hours a day. There’s usually refrigerated and freezer storage in the back. Some stores bake cakes and steam shrimp, too. And they have all the electronics associated with checking out as well, along with basic heating and cooling.

So, for such a shopping center, a solar panel canopy would be built over the parking lot. The first businesses that would get the electricity generated by the solar panels would be those in the shopping center. Even if it’s primarily daylight generation, that’s a long period of time (especially in summer), and it’s also when they use the most electricity. Any excess generation would go back in the grid. Getting electricity from their own parking lot solar canopy would save them money.

So, first of all, it’s good for the shopping center because the shopping center tenants get the electricity. Second, it’s good for the shopping center because customers like the canopies! If it’s raining, they don’t get wet, especially when loading groceries into the car. Same goes for snow. If it’s sunny and hot, the car stays much cooler because it’s in the shade. That also saves energy because the AC doesn’t have to run as high to cool the car off when the driver and passengers get back in.

I’m not the first person to think this: read https://www.godfreyhoffman.com/blog/solar-panel-parking-lots .

Here’s a less optimistic article:

https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy/2015/0128/Solar-parking-lots-sound-like-a-great-idea.-Why-aren-t-they-catching-on

Now, here’s what it says about why they aren’t catching on (note this was 2015):

“It would solve several environmental problems at once with relatively little inconvenience and a high payback. So why aren’t solar carports in every mall in America? The cost.

“It’s the most expensive type of system to build,” Chase Weir of TruSolarwhich rates solar projects based on financial riskiness, told The Washington Post. “A lot more engineering, a whole lot more steel, more labor, and therefore, it’s a relatively small percentage [of solar power].”

OK, but think about that for a minute – more labor? A plus, as it means more jobs, particularly less-skilled labor (no computer programming is necessary here). Not just construction, even drilling holes in parking lots for the framework, but electricians and maintenance, even just keeping them clean. More steel? A plus, as it means more production of steel, and isn’t that something America’s industrial heartland needs? (Not just steel, but all the other necessary components, too.)

As with anything that’s more expensive, what the government would need to do is offer incentives to offset the initial construction costs. Once the system starts working, the businesses could pay the investment cost back to the government for the savings. Also note that the cost of solar panels has come down.

Now, the Trump administration has blocked some solar power incentives, and import of foreign-made solar panels. That may be partially OK, because there are some indicators that the foreign-made panels (especially from China) aren’t as well made, and may release more toxic metals. This is a downside in any situation, but there hasn’t been much concern expressed about how clean the solar panel installations are in the U.S. Apparently a broken panel can release some potentially harmful substances.

Which brings me briefly to waste disposal. Old solar panels, and the byproducts of the manufacturing process, have to go somewhere. Let me suggest: Yucca Mountain, where radioactive waste from nuclear power plants was slated to go. This stuff doesn’t have the long-term concerns that radioactive waste does – it just has to go somewhere stable. If this was deemed a national imperative, we collectively could come up with solutions to the waste disposal problem (and maybe recycling/reuse is possible). Obviously, the waste from solar panels is only one part of a much bigger overall waste disposal problem.

Next question: what about when the Sun doesn’t shine? Well, this is not a total solution, as obviously one problem is night. Base power generation is still needed (batteries would help for storage too, but they have their own environmental problems, and even the best rechargeable batteries can’t be recharged endlessly). But this would substantially reduce our demands, particularly in summers when demand is highest and utility companies have to bring their secondary less-efficient plants online, which they don’t like to do, as it’s more expensive. Why do you think they want to put peak demand meters on your home system? One, keep the grid up, and two, save themselves money! Plus, some of the coldest winter days are the clear sunny days after a storm front comes through – and the canopies can definitely generate power under those conditions.

The backup is traditional generation, and also my other piece of the pie, small nuclear reactors, just like are used on nuclear submarines and battleships. Neighborhood nukes, for home and the local shopping center. Quite safe – when was the last time you heard about a nuclear accident on a U.S. naval vessel? Plus, if the absolute worst happened, the affected area would be much smaller than for a large plant. It shouldn’t happen, but it’s an aspect of scale.

But that’s not the point of this article – PLUGS-In is the point. If the government would recognize the need for much more clean energy generation, and the dangers of climate change (the dire recent IPCC report would influence most normally functioning intellects), then they would initiate a program like PLUGS-In. It would make jobs, right here in these United States, while addressing a critical global problem with MINIMAL pain. More jobs – clean electricity – benefits to business – benefits to the individual customer of those businesses – benefits to the global climate – those are all the pros for this plan. Even the most diehard climate change denier would be forced to admit the economic benefits of a plan like this, while still denying the environmental need for it.

But that’s still not all. In case you haven’t been paying attention, there is a substantial movement toward electric vehicles, particularly cars, in this country. They still run on batteries, and the batteries have to be charged. That electricity for charging has to come from somewhere. If it comes from clean generation from solar panels, less of it will have to come from traditional fossil fuel burning. I’m not worried about the fossil fuel industry – trains, planes, and trucks are going to have to use internal combustion engines for quite awhile. You won’t catch me on a battery-powered airplane. So, if you have an electric car, you head to the shopping center, top off the charge while you're shopping, and you barely accounted for a single molecule of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. Cool, huh? (Well, that's the idea.)

One more thing – pollution and emissions. Simply, the less fossil fuel burned, the less emissions into the atmosphere. That covers the basics, like CO2 and SO2, and the less basic, like mercury and cadmium. It’s too bad that the EPA lightened up restrictions on emissions of substances like that, but if we burn less fossil fuels, then that’s another way of reducing the load on the environment.

Now, I realize that the best places for this type of system are warm and sunny locales, so it would be less pressing to install them in the ofttimes cloudy Pacific Northwest or the cold-in-the-winter Midwest (though it would still work there), but for the Southwest, Southeast, definitely Florida, and much of sunny California, this plan would take advantage of both natural resources – sunlight, and unnatural resources – parking lots, and would be a great step forward addressing the climate change issue.

Regarding where the solar panel canopies could go in addition to the neighborhood shopping center, there are sports stadiums, shopping malls, industrial parks, hospitals, airports, schools, colleges, park-and-ride lots, and office building parking lots.

When the Allies fought World War II, many citizens had to make sacrifices. Fuel, rubber, metal, food, many other items were rationed. Lights were turned off at night. Numerous people went to work in industries that supported the war effort, even women. Everyone pitched in. It was a collective effort. because the consequences of failure were too great. We are in that situation again now with climate change -- but the great thing about PLUGS-In is that there really isn't much sacrifice -- and finally, the initial investment necessary could be paid for with a modest carbon tax, because businesses will underwrite some of the cost. All most of us would have to do is to patronize the businesses that have invested in a parking lot solar panel canopy? How hard is THAT?

Additional references are below. Below that are a few pictures of different solar panel canopy installations. The first one is FedEx Field in Landover, MD. The specs on this say that it generates all the power the stadium needs on off-days, and 20% of the power the stadium needs on game days. Imagine how much power would be generated if all the parking lots were covered with solar power canopies!

http://solarbyempire.com/why-solar/solar-options/118-parking-lot-canopies

https://www.absoluterv.com/help-and-resources/solar-rooftops/case-solar-energy-parking-lots/

Quotes:

“Since the cost of energy during peak hours is far greater than what’s charged during off peak hours, it’s an ideal set of circumstances that allows the panels to produce energy exactly when it’s needed most. “

“If one had the choice between shopping at two local grocery stores and one offered energy-producing covered parking and the other offered only hot, black, asphalt, which one would the customer likely choose? The answer is obvious.”