Yeah, I’m largely spitballing. Perhaps the numbers don’t work out, perhaps they do.
That said, solar over parking is a source of income. It may well pay for itself whilst providing parking that is both shaded and rain sheltering and improving energy security and helping fight climate change and probably powering a bunch of charge points underneath it, which you could either charge for or just leave free to encourage people to come to whatever the parking is attached to (or just the parking itself if it’s a paid car park). My local Sainsbury’s has a free charging point and it’s a big part of why I shop there.
Also design the canopies to be their own scaffolding so the elevated maintenance is moot.
You can resurface under a canopy. Hell, petrol stations are almost always under a canopy and they definitely get resurfaced sometimes.
There’s a risk of someone crashing into any building, too, but we still build things that are useful beside roads.
I’m just saying that, yes, it’s not cut and dry, but I’m pretty sure the problems with the idea are generally solvable.
Solvable but not financially sound. Im not arguing that its a bad idea and that we should not do it. Im arguing that from the financial view its not profitable, so there is a reason why its not happening.
Oh wow. This is going to be a long one. Sorry for this and thanks if you take a time to read it…
You can resurface under a canopy.
Of course you can. But lets imagine you are a contractor. How much more you would charge doing a clean parking lot versus parking lot with lots of beams and high voltage equipment both over the head and under the pavement. Especially if cant bring larger equipment to there?
How about when you think about your business that uses that parking lot for the customers, how much it would cost to keep the lot closed for a two days it takes to resurface it instead of one.
But lets solve it by making the canopy larger, so they can use the bigger machinery and do what ever resurfacing they need with close to same price and nearly as fast than just a plain old flat parking space.
Now the initial building cost starts to multiply because larger structure needs more materials and things like wind start to effect more. Oh, higher canopy means the shadow is not on the parking spot anymore. Well we can live with that, or we can make the canopy wider and add more panels. It just means we need more and sturdier, more expensive material to do that. Well do it or not, the higher canopy makes maintaning the panels harder and more expensive, but wait we made the canopy to be its own scaffolding, that surely does not add to the building cost, engineering and designing is free and afterall. You probably need to close few parking spaces everytime maintanence is happening anyway.
Well lets say anything before this is non issue and there is enough panel coverage to justify the cost and maintanance. Rainwater has been easy to direct to right place and the structure can handle the weather, wind and possible snowfall, the electric cables and battery system were easy to place maintain and they are not fire risks and the project produces enough energy to justify the expense.
What happens with insurance. We have build rather expensive and delicate system in place where people of all ages drives around. What happens when somebody bumbs in to the supports keeping that whole thing upright. What if somebody crashes and part of it comes down. What if the maintanance guy takes a fall. Well in every case you, the owner of the lot need to either stop what you are doing and start to jump trough hoops, or you need to hire somebody to do so. Even if you are no way in fault, you need to make sure everything is structurally sound and spend time with the situation.
Well crashes happen. Lets not dwell on it. Lets focus on the good part. Free electricity. Is there enough of it to justify the building cost and the maintanance of this new system? Lets say there is and everything is fine and dandy. Who uses the electricity? Do i own the whole place and run my own business there. Great! I can use the electricity and even sell the excess. Or maybe there isint that much, but i can put few Evehicle charging ports there. Do they and the shade they produce bring enough business for me to justify the cost of building this canopy? Who knows. But wait. Arent most of the busineses renting their premises. Do i sell the electricity to them or just sell it on the open market. What kind of paper war i need to do so the lease is fair to everybody even if there are times when the panels dont produce because of the weather. Sounds like it could be headache. Well lets not worry about that either. Im sure the paperwork will solve it self. Alltough there are also plenty of places where the parking lots are owned by completelly different entity than the busines near them.
Now lets say all of the above is solved and ask the big question. The reason why i think we dont have these things build.
How you as a business man, justify all this, when you could spend the same amount of money renting or buying a lot of land somewhere else and have the same amount of solarpanels build with smaller maintanance costs in less accident prone enviroment and keep your parking lot as it is? Realistically it would be better to use that money on something else.
Only way i see this could happen is busines owners want be green or if they get tax benefits or something from it.
I think solarpanels on the parking lots could be nice, but i dont see a lot of incentive for doing it on big scale. I think most busineses would do better if they build just normal light weigh, easily movable canopies and just out the panels on the roof or the walls.
Thanks for reading my bullshit and sorry for any typoes in it.
All fair. And, to be clear, I’m suggesting it be mandated or incentivised by governments, I’m not suggesting businesses would do it on its own merits. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a good idea for them in, say, twenty years time, even with all of the complications.
Yeah, I’m largely spitballing. Perhaps the numbers don’t work out, perhaps they do.
That said, solar over parking is a source of income. It may well pay for itself whilst providing parking that is both shaded and rain sheltering and improving energy security and helping fight climate change and probably powering a bunch of charge points underneath it, which you could either charge for or just leave free to encourage people to come to whatever the parking is attached to (or just the parking itself if it’s a paid car park). My local Sainsbury’s has a free charging point and it’s a big part of why I shop there.
Also design the canopies to be their own scaffolding so the elevated maintenance is moot.
You can resurface under a canopy. Hell, petrol stations are almost always under a canopy and they definitely get resurfaced sometimes.
There’s a risk of someone crashing into any building, too, but we still build things that are useful beside roads.
I’m just saying that, yes, it’s not cut and dry, but I’m pretty sure the problems with the idea are generally solvable.
Solvable but not financially sound. Im not arguing that its a bad idea and that we should not do it. Im arguing that from the financial view its not profitable, so there is a reason why its not happening.
Oh wow. This is going to be a long one. Sorry for this and thanks if you take a time to read it…
Of course you can. But lets imagine you are a contractor. How much more you would charge doing a clean parking lot versus parking lot with lots of beams and high voltage equipment both over the head and under the pavement. Especially if cant bring larger equipment to there?
How about when you think about your business that uses that parking lot for the customers, how much it would cost to keep the lot closed for a two days it takes to resurface it instead of one.
But lets solve it by making the canopy larger, so they can use the bigger machinery and do what ever resurfacing they need with close to same price and nearly as fast than just a plain old flat parking space.
Now the initial building cost starts to multiply because larger structure needs more materials and things like wind start to effect more. Oh, higher canopy means the shadow is not on the parking spot anymore. Well we can live with that, or we can make the canopy wider and add more panels. It just means we need more and sturdier, more expensive material to do that. Well do it or not, the higher canopy makes maintaning the panels harder and more expensive, but wait we made the canopy to be its own scaffolding, that surely does not add to the building cost, engineering and designing is free and afterall. You probably need to close few parking spaces everytime maintanence is happening anyway.
Well lets say anything before this is non issue and there is enough panel coverage to justify the cost and maintanance. Rainwater has been easy to direct to right place and the structure can handle the weather, wind and possible snowfall, the electric cables and battery system were easy to place maintain and they are not fire risks and the project produces enough energy to justify the expense.
What happens with insurance. We have build rather expensive and delicate system in place where people of all ages drives around. What happens when somebody bumbs in to the supports keeping that whole thing upright. What if somebody crashes and part of it comes down. What if the maintanance guy takes a fall. Well in every case you, the owner of the lot need to either stop what you are doing and start to jump trough hoops, or you need to hire somebody to do so. Even if you are no way in fault, you need to make sure everything is structurally sound and spend time with the situation.
Well crashes happen. Lets not dwell on it. Lets focus on the good part. Free electricity. Is there enough of it to justify the building cost and the maintanance of this new system? Lets say there is and everything is fine and dandy. Who uses the electricity? Do i own the whole place and run my own business there. Great! I can use the electricity and even sell the excess. Or maybe there isint that much, but i can put few Evehicle charging ports there. Do they and the shade they produce bring enough business for me to justify the cost of building this canopy? Who knows. But wait. Arent most of the busineses renting their premises. Do i sell the electricity to them or just sell it on the open market. What kind of paper war i need to do so the lease is fair to everybody even if there are times when the panels dont produce because of the weather. Sounds like it could be headache. Well lets not worry about that either. Im sure the paperwork will solve it self. Alltough there are also plenty of places where the parking lots are owned by completelly different entity than the busines near them.
Now lets say all of the above is solved and ask the big question. The reason why i think we dont have these things build.
How you as a business man, justify all this, when you could spend the same amount of money renting or buying a lot of land somewhere else and have the same amount of solarpanels build with smaller maintanance costs in less accident prone enviroment and keep your parking lot as it is? Realistically it would be better to use that money on something else.
Only way i see this could happen is busines owners want be green or if they get tax benefits or something from it.
I think solarpanels on the parking lots could be nice, but i dont see a lot of incentive for doing it on big scale. I think most busineses would do better if they build just normal light weigh, easily movable canopies and just out the panels on the roof or the walls.
Thanks for reading my bullshit and sorry for any typoes in it.
What is the electricity bill of a supermarket? How long would pay itself a solar root on the parking lot?
All fair. And, to be clear, I’m suggesting it be mandated or incentivised by governments, I’m not suggesting businesses would do it on its own merits. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a good idea for them in, say, twenty years time, even with all of the complications.