Parking lot solar is a good idea -- again.

 

Of course I wrote about the idea of parking lot solar panels four or so years ago. ("Now is the time for PLUGS-In").   And I have tweeted noting that it's now a law in France that new parking lots will have to have solar panels.

And now it's in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

How to expand solar power without using precious land

Here's the part from the article about parking lots.  (The numbers are references in the article.)

"The lakes of asphalt that dot our landscape offer another untapped resource that could host solar installations. Photovoltaic panels can act as solar canopies for parking lots, shielding people and cars from sun and rain, reducing the urban heat-island effect, and providing power for our burgeoning fleets of electric vehicles.

Joshua Pearce and systems engineer Swaraj Deshmukh at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, have calculated that if a solar canopy covered every Walmart parking lot in North America, they would have a total peak generating capacity of more than 11 gigawatts (11).

“An average parking lot would make more energy than the store needs and could power 100 vehicle chargers,” Pearce says. These systems would be much more expensive per watt than utility-scale, ground-mounted solar, but potentially closer to the cost of commercially available roof-mounted solar, depending on the materials used for the canopies. They could also be a profitable investment, adds Pearce: “The store could let customers charge for free, encouraging them to spend more time there.” An analysis in Time magazine concluded that covering 50% of all US parking lots would allow for roughly 400- to 800-gigawatt generating capacity, a big chunk of the US government’s 2035 goal of 1,000 gigawatts from solar (12).

Could that happen? In December, France’s national assembly approved a law that would require businesses with large parking lots—a surface area of more than 1,500 square meters—to install solar panels (13). In the United States, such a sweeping policy would likely have long odds, due to the higher costs and objections related to property rights, so the spread of solar parking may hinge on its economic benefits."

Maybe it would be long odds -- but it is such a good idea it should beat those odds.