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- Hacker News
- It floors me that the whole world is pretty content saying “okay cool solar/wind/renewables” and then theres the uneducated states of america who is rejecting all of itby gnarlouse
- > the uneducated states of america
It's really not cool to insult people, you know. This is in just as poor taste as when smug Americans say "Europoors".
by bigstrat2003 - Don't worry, the US is actively trying to export that rejection, too, so it won't be alone. See Trump's messed up rant at the UN, and the policies and proposals of his conservative allies here in Canada.
Alberta was the the fastest growing renewable producer in Canada due to high winds and long solar days and low cloud cover. The provincial government in the pocket of the oil industry banned renewable developments for months under the excuse that it was "destroying farmland" and then came back months later with a policy that hamstringed future development.
to these people, renewables are a threat because they can't be a parasite off it.
- I wish it was a matter of education. Unfortunately that has little to do with the problem.by james4k
- This is performative. If it were economically viable there'd be panels in parking lots. They're not because the land isn't the expensive part. It's the installation, maintenance, and ancillary equipment that makes solar expensive these days.by treis
- A quick reminder that South Korea is closer to the equator than Spain or Greece.by jansan
- That is generally worse for PV potential, clouds, rain etcby aegypti
- And South Korea is at about the same latitude as Tennessee and North Carolina.by metabagel
- It doesn’t matter. I’m in Canada in a tight valley where it snows a ton and my rooftop solar makes $1000 of power a year. Solar is so cheap now, and still falling, it makes sense literally everywhere.by testing22321
- Their new law requires parking lots with more than 80 spaces to have solar panels.
Great idea, where I live I'm pretty much maxing out the percentage of permitted structures allowed by zoning.
I could imagine that if solar panel carports didn't count towards structure limits, I'd build a carport across my absurdly large driveway :)
I think there are lots of "free" ways we could incentivize private construction of solar panels -- even without monetary subsidies.
Or we could even tax people for not doing it. In Denmark your land is taxed based on what it's zoned for, and how it could be utilized (not how it is utilized).
by jopsen - I think I would like it if it better if it were an either or.
Either solar panels, or rain gardens, or permeable pavement, or canopy, or some combination.
But then again that might make loopholes that make my head spin. Might have to leave the higher rung up to organizations like LEED and leave the minimums as one or maybe two choices. Maybe make the other harder than solar unless you have a weird situation where say adding trees is simpler than running power distribution, like across the street from the shop.
by hinkley - I hope this doesn't result in new parking lots to "coincidentally" only have 79 parking lots.by FooBarWidget
- I wish the IRA infrastructure bill from a few years ago had included something like this. Not the total mandate, but these should be subsidized and encouraged. These installations actually improve an area and have multiple benefits. Instead the US bill incentivizes detroying large swaths of wild land which is unfortunate.by rurp
- We have a similar law in France. Something is unclear to me though:
"build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions."
Not sure what that means but that doesn't seem right.
by pingou - Which part?
12 parking lots
657 kW nameplate capacity
1.23 GWh per year of energy production
The 185,000 cubicles worth of CO2 emissions is likely based on average pollution per car, and average carbon intensity of the local grid.
by _aavaa_ - I have to wonder if they are taking into account the AC usage or other factors to get there; When you park in the shade, you don't have to cool your car down nearly as much. This effect is greater in hot deserts with lots of sun. There are likely other benefits to the vehicles and infrastructure.
- The complete sentence for context:
"Here in the US, we’re proving that out, too – the Northwest Fire District in Arizona partnered with Standard Solar to build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions."
- The article is a bit misleading.
The new law requires the installation of solar panels in all *public* parking lots operated by the government. I checked this through local news sources.
In South Korea, there are already incentives to install solar panels on buildings, including parking lots. If you operate a solar power system with a capacity of over 20 kW, you can sell the generated electricity at prices higher than the market rate thanks to government support programs.
Despite these benefits, many parking lots in South Korea still do not install solar panels. This is mainly because, given the country’s high population density, most parking lots are located on land that is considered potential development sites. Once solar panels are installed, it becomes more difficult to change the land use later for development purposes, and the owners would also have to bear additional costs for removing the panels.
by youknowone - This is not a bad idea. EVs can charge during the day, go home fully charged, connect to the grid and supply power to the grid. EV batteries are humongous and a large number of them will become an energy reservoir. All excess production during the day (which is being curtailed now) can be stored in Evs and reused later throughout the day.
The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying.
- Paid for supplying demand!
I’ll believe that when I see it.
by nandomrumber - That's exactly what I want is for my car's battery to be drained overnight.by somedude895
- > The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying.
How would this work? Who is then paying for the solar?
by lostlogin - V2G is a pipe dream. Nobody has gotten out of the pilot program phase, largely because the return on investment isn't convincing. If you can't make a profit off it it doesn't happen.by 0xbadcafebee
- This seems really inefficient, everyone transporting around a bunch of excess capacity? Smaller, lighter, cheaper electric cars paired with a properly built and resilient grid seems like a better goal to me.
They’d wear out roads less, use less resources to make, be safer to others in crashes, etc. I dislike the trend of increasingly larger vehicles just to move a single person around 87% of the time.
- I'm an EV owner and homeowner and looked into V2X when planning my solar/residential battery system.
On the home side, the hardware is largely there. The charger I'm buying and many others support it - though many need a future software update. On the vehicle side though, it's very inconsistent; there are only a few vehicles that support it and even for those, what my installer told me is that the manufacturer warranties typically either void the warranty entirely if V2(G/H) is used or harshly limit the amount of energy that can be used. They're concerned that it will lead to excess wear on the battery, the main component of an EV.
And I think I agree with them. With current battery technology, I don't think using EVs as a grid-scale storage system for renewables is viable. For grid-scale or residential storage, you want a battery that can be as heavy and physically large as it needs to be but it needs to deal with a lot of charge/discharge cycles. Your best option here right now is LiFePO. For the kind of EV people are generally willing to buy right now, you need to cram as much range into the car as you can, which means the battery needs to be as energy-dense as possible and charge/discharge cycles are less of a concern. That means LiPo.
I think the most realistic use of EVs for grid-scale integration is what they're calling "virtual plant", where they're treated like a separate source of energy that the grid can tap into in exceptional situations.
by Youden - This happened pretty organically in south africa, especially on malls.
* Prevents being affected by grid blackouts
* Seen as progressive / eco by customers and ofc shade
* You've got captive demand - air-conditioning giant mall & food shops need industrial fridges
* Enough scale to do meaningful grid feed in
* Already have the infra to do generator switch over
* Access to financing and ability to plan over the 10 years or so that it takes to recover cost
by Havoc - I recall malls in the Gauteng area sometimes having netting or shade cloth over car parking bays. As a way to prevent hail damage to cars that can occur occasionally but unpredictably. Leaving your car out under the sky for hours was a risk.
I wonder how well the solar panels will stand up to hail.
Some parts of the interior of the USA will have very similar hail considerations.
- Generally the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions are low volume niche products that cost way more than traditional ground mounts. My biggest hope is that this policy creates a marketplace with actual competition that comes up with more cost efficient mounting solutions that make it practical worldwide.
Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands that take up way too much space. While adding solar on them doesn't solve the last issue, it does help mitigate the heat island effect and solar panels are no less ugly than asphalt. Plus it is power creation right next to where it is being consumed for minimal transfer losses. It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade.
by jandrese - Will self-driving cars cut down on parking lots? Seems like they'll be much smaller/denser once the car can even just self park (don't have to leave room on left/right for opening doors, and can even stack tighter/front back as long as you're smart about shuffling them).
And of course, once more people are using self-driving cars instead of owning their own, cars will have less idle time spent in lots.
by apparent - Some stores build parking for peak traffic days and a few people have suggested that it would be better if the outer bits of your lot were built using permeable pavement to reduce the amount of runoff that has to go onto the storm sewers. The little rain gardens we see now do something but not much.by hinkley