[HN Gopher] New South Korean national law will turn large parkin...
___________________________________________________________________
New South Korean national law will turn large parking lots into
solar farms
Author : thelastgallon
Score : 141 points
Date : 2025-11-02 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| pingou wrote:
| 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.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| 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.
| pingou wrote:
| The average emissions for a car is 4.6 tons of co2. The
| average carbon intensity of U.S. electricity generation is
| around 384 grams of co2 per kWh. 1230000 * 0.384 / 1000 = 472
| tons. But 185000 cars emit 851000 tons so 500 tons is like a
| rounding error, unless I am mistaken.
| hinkley wrote:
| Either it's a full on hallucination or they intend the
| power to be used to charge electric vehicles. Which is a
| stretch because solar parking isn't going to sell that many
| electric vehicles. It will sell some, but not _that_ many
| more.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| 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."
| imoverclocked wrote:
| 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.
| jandrese wrote:
| 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.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| > It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in
| the shade.
|
| Pedestrians too.
| hinkley wrote:
| I love the idea but execution will determine if this is
| better for pedestrians. Poorly executed parking solar could
| reduce sightlines and escape routes by crowding ground level.
|
| Hopefully this will be the sort of thing where we try
| different strategies quickly and pick winners and losers.
|
| India has done a lot of work with covering irrigation canals
| with solar, and in some ways that's a simpler problem so it
| makes sense that this is happening now instead of earlier.
| Big successful systems start as small successful ones. Maybe
| there is some substantial knowledge transfer that can occur
| there.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Depends on the season!
|
| In winter I'd park my car at a train station and be sure to
| have the windshield pointed west so the car would be a bit
| toasty when I got in.
| testing22321 wrote:
| I'd much rather look out across a city and see solar panel
| islands rather than a coal smoke stack belching smoke, a nuke
| cooling tower or a massive dam.
|
| Just because old school power generation is often out of sight,
| it shouldn't be out of mind
| tomrod wrote:
| I don't mind nuclear. Good for base load.
| boshomi wrote:
| Base load becomes very expensive under free and fair market
| conditions. The reason is simple: wind and PV are extremely
| cheap, and surplus capacity costs little. PV module price
| in EU is just 0.086 UDS/W fob. Wind turbine price in China
| ~2200Yuan/kW inclusive tower.
|
| In a free market, this leads to attractive conditions for
| batteries, and that is where the problem of base load
| begins: there is a lack of real demand, and base load then
| remains unused because its OPEX cannot compete with wind
| and PV.
|
| There's just one problem. There is virtually no free and
| fair market in the electricity market. Utilities lobby very
| successfully for highly regulated markets to protect their
| monopolies. Nuclear power requires massive government
| protection from competition, which makes it attractive to
| utilities.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| This is a prediction of the future, not an observation
| about the present / past like it's phrased as.
| boshomi wrote:
| no, this are real world prices
|
| https://www.infolink-group.com/spot-price/
| https://wind.in-en.com/html/wind-2462559.shtml (chinese
| example)
|
| BESS 5MWh 52 USD/kWh: https://www.metal.com/Battery-Cell-
| And-Module/202407100001
|
| Yes, electricity is becoming very cheap in China, and it
| will be difficult for the West to keep up here.
| Exorbitant US tariffs are also counterproductive, as they
| only serve to secure monopoly profits for old utilities.
| hinkley wrote:
| We are already cresting that hill. It's happening now.
| It's not happening everywhere, but it's already
| happening.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| Nuclear is attractive? Are we living on the same planet?
| I wish it was attractive but it's quite obviously the
| opposite.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Base load is something of the past. Base load does no
| longer exist as such as during daytimes the solar curve
| will / should push it to zero as surplus capacity is cheap.
| Running base load plays at night is then also no longer
| sensible.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"I don 't mind nuclear. Good for base load."_
|
| Everyone who has an electricity bill or pays taxes should
| be against new-build nuclear power because it is pretty
| much the most expensive way to produce electricity. You
| should instead lobby for wind, solar, and even closing coal
| power plants in favour of modern natural gas plants. All of
| those will cut more emissions, more quickly, per dollar
| spent.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Do _you_ see any of those things now?
| testing22321 wrote:
| Personally, no. My brother does. My sister does.
|
| Hundreds of millions of people do, and their health would
| improve if they didn't.
| dvdkon wrote:
| I understand the complaint against coal power plants, but
| you're not saying that nuclear power plant or large dams
| cause health issues, right?
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| large dams do have pretty big environmental effects
| lazide wrote:
| None of them that impact people's health.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Not even remotely true.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure>
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure#List_of_major_
| dam_...>
|
| And that's just the _direct_ impacts from failure. Long-
| term environmental costs are real, if indirect.
|
| I write this somewhat reluctantly as hydro _is_ carbon-
| neutral,* and affords one of the better energy-storage
| options, as pumped hydro. Even allowing that dam failures
| tend to occur under regimes with significant
| organisational issues (low trust, low public concern, low
| levels of organisation, conflicted interests), dams have
| a pretty horrific track record for direct fatalities.
| Almost all those risks _are_ mitigatable, and the
| underlying root cause (organisational dysfunction) would
| likely create similar risk patterns for _other_ energy
| modalities. But we have a direct history to point to.
|
| I've written on this topic a few times at HN should you
| or others be interested, I do hope my thoughts come
| across as nuanced, as they in fact are:
|
| <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=fals
| e&qu...>
| ACCount37 wrote:
| I don't mind things like huge cooling towers or massive dams.
| They're majestic in the same way ancient pyramids are
| majestic. On top of being useful infrastructure and not just
| oversized landscaping pieces.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| The asteroid that hit the planet and made dinosaurs go
| extinct was pretty majestic too! It was a sight to behold:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq3nWnTkFbk
|
| 1.1 to 1.2 billion tons of coal ash are produced each year
| globally from 9 billion tonnes. These are pretty majestic
| for kids to roll in and have fun.
| Forbo wrote:
| ACCount37 expressly left out the coal smoke stacks from
| their description, so I'm not sure why you chose to focus
| solely on that and throw it back in?
| thelastgallon wrote:
| What are cooling towers for if not for coal smoke stacks?
| ascorbic wrote:
| Nuclear
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| the clouds comming off nuclear towers is literally just
| steam. not radioactive steam. just.... steam
| hvb2 wrote:
| That's not even unique to nuclear. Gas and coal can have
| them too. Typically they're only used if the other source
| of coolant is not sufficient.
|
| For example, you take in cooling water from a river. When
| the river gets too hot in summer you want to use that
| cooling tower to evaporate water to provide additional
| cooling.
|
| Which also explains why it's steam
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| What about the billions of tons of solar panels that turn
| to toxic garbage every 20 years or so, and can't yet be
| recycled? Not to mention the huge amount of land consumed
| by solar farms.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Trivial national production compared with a single dam.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The problem with dams is that for the most part in the
| West all the good sites near population centers have been
| taken. In developing countries you have the issue of new
| dams potentially making older downstream ones less
| useful, which is now a real conflict point with Egypt vs
| Sudan vs Ethiopia, Afghanistan vs Iran, China vs India
| and SEA, etc.
|
| In addition, because silt will back up in reservoirs
| there are an increasing amount of old dams where removal
| makes more sense than spending more money on dredging and
| maintaining the dam; and with droughts becoming more
| common hydro is not as reliable for baseload anymore.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Let's also not forget about the haze of photochemical smog
| everywhere there are combustion vehicles.
|
| Today I walked by someone dropping off people from his diesel
| VW Passat B6. You could smell that thing from afar and it
| bothers me that it's still considered roadworthy.
| DANmode wrote:
| Diesel particles are _heavy_.
| rayiner wrote:
| What's wrong with a nuke cooling tower?
| rainsford wrote:
| I admit this is subjective, but they're giant ugly concrete
| chimney-like structures spewing stuff into the air. Sure,
| intellectually I know it's just water vapor and they're
| form is dictated by their function, but they _look_ like
| they belong in some pollution riddled dystopian hellscape.
|
| I'm actually pro-nuclear power, but the cooling towers are
| a pretty significant eyesore and a non-trivial downside.
| But apparently some people hate the way wind turbines look
| while I think they're sleek and futuristic looking, so
| taste as ever is subjective.
| lazide wrote:
| I'm not aware of any sizable cities with coal smoke stacks,
| nuke towers, or visible large dams.
|
| Are you?
| awesomecomment wrote:
| I personally don't know but I feel like, we also need to
| think of the environmental changes of something like solar
| batteries if we store the energy
|
| There was a michael moore's documentary regarding climate
| change and I personally think that the best solution climate-
| wise speaking is probably nuclear but the whole world's
| sentiment is so regulated by lobby-ists which is why the cost
| of production of them and regulations shot up to an
| unreasonable amounts but the world was already transitioning
| to nuclear energies.
|
| There are some new modular approaches to it which aren't as
| efficient but feel safer to the general public but nuclear is
| one of the most safest and compact sources of massive amounts
| of energy generation compared to solar and wind.
|
| Nuclear Energy is cool.
|
| Now am I right/wrong in saying this, let me know, I think I
| am right but I maybe wrong too, but its just that every
| expert I have seen on this topic really prefer's nuclear and
| my own "research" on this topic makes me feel the same
| really.
|
| Somebody should write more clearly as to why nuclear is
| superior to solar and the others as a comment as I feel like
| I have written similar things atleast once more and maybe if
| there could be a nice website like why.nuclear or why-
| nuclear.net etc. which could give points of why nuclear is a
| superior form, it could be really great and I would love to
| hear more arguments both good and bad comparison with nuclear
| (primarily) and maybe comparing it with solar if somebody's
| an expert on this topic as I would love to hear an expert
| about it as well.
| deadbabe wrote:
| What if we designed nuclear cooling towers to be more
| aesthetic? Maybe it would become desirable to see.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| > solar panels are no less ugly than asphalt.
|
| Matter of taste. But I find geometric rows of tilted rectangles
| much less noisy (visually) than a zillion random cars, or an
| acre of cracked asphalt.
| circuit10 wrote:
| I think maybe it was supposed to say "no more"
| hinkley wrote:
| Solar operators aren't cranking the bass so high that the
| windmills are leaving rust shadows on the road at stop
| lights.
|
| Well, at least not so far.
| hinkley wrote:
| 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.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions
| are low volume niche products that cost way more than
| traditional ground mounts."_
|
| Yes, but if you're building shade canopies over the parking lot
| anyway (this is quite common in southern Europe, for example)
| the marginal cost to add solar to the design will be relatively
| small. And if the government is backing it, production volumes
| will rise so it's no longer a niche product. Economies of
| scale.
| hinkley wrote:
| Solar already has economies of scale. There are three types
| of projects called out in How Big Projects Get Done and what
| they all have in common is that what you do on day 25 is
| mostly refinement of what you were doing on day four. Those
| are roads, solar, and wind projects. The self similarity
| means you are more likely to hit your targets. Because you
| just go faster and faster as you figure out the choreography.
| And the known unknowns.
| apparent wrote:
| 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.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| No matter what, the canopy solar system will be more expensive
| than ground mounting. You have to build for more wind loading.
| For a car to crash into it and not fall over. And now that the
| public is around, build that much stronger to never fall over.
| And secure the wiring that much better against the public.
|
| Better to replace some farmland, which you can make a strong
| argument for if you're growing crops for biodiesel or fuel-
| ethanol were the sun-to-wheel efficiency is terrible.
|
| > Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands
| that take up way too much space.
|
| I've got bad news about nearly black PV panels... it might be
| cooler under them, but around them is a different story.
|
| My personal thought is to saturate rooftops before going for
| the poorer ROI parking lot PV canopies.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| >Better to replace some farmland, which you can make a strong
| argument for if you're growing crops for biodiesel or fuel-
| ethanol were the sun-to-wheel efficiency is terrible.
|
| Yeah, who needs to eat anyway? Lol it is perfectly fine to
| put this shit in parking lots. In hot climates, it's a
| benefit to customers to have covered parking. The wiring
| should be no more fragile than, say, power lines or lighting
| fixtures in the area. Parking lots are also better because it
| doesn't matter as much if water leaks between or around the
| solar panels. Putting them on rooftops tends to cause roof
| leaks and it presents problems for roof repairs.
|
| >I've got bad news about nearly black PV panels... it might
| be cooler under them, but around them is a different story.
|
| Higher temps around black PVs should be similar to black
| asphalt. Also, the thermal mass of the PVs is lower, so they
| will not stay as hot in the evening.
|
| There are probably issues with PVs related to ice buildup and
| hail. They probably don't make sense in places with those
| issues.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| 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.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > 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?
| thelastgallon wrote:
| The utility. The utility operates a 24/7 electricity
| marketplace that perfectly matches supply and demand. Supply
| must follow demand. If demand decreases, pricing becomes
| negative until supply decreases. This is problematic because
| we aren't utilizing all the excess energy generated by solar
| and wind. Which is all free.
|
| Wholesale prices went negative about 200 million times: https
| ://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-r...
| (https://archive.is/nFsOk)
|
| Regional clusters emerged, for example, in the Permian Basin
| in western Texas, and in Kansas and western Oklahoma in the
| Southwest Power Pool (SPP), negative prices accounted for
| more than 25% of all hours. Negative electricity prices
| result either from local congestion of the transmission
| system leading supply to exceed demand locally or due to
| system-wide oversupply.
| :https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/plentiful-electricity-
| turns...
|
| Edit: This is called curtailment. It is now ~20% and
| increasing:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity)
| somedude895 wrote:
| That's exactly what I want is for my car's battery to be
| drained overnight.
| wffurr wrote:
| What about the top 10% or 20%? It would be just like using
| "reserve mode" but you'd get paid for it. And have the option
| to turn it off before a road trip.
| redserk wrote:
| And have extra wear on your battery that would far outweigh
| anything you'd get out of it?
|
| I'm down about 18% capacity after 4 years of owning my
| current EV. It's still plenty for my needs but I would be
| very disappointed if I saw this capacity drop much sooner
| or if it drops much more.
|
| A replacement would be ~$15k and the cost of replacing the
| car would be a lot greater.
|
| I'm very much digging the current strategy of grid-tied
| batteries and the myriad of companies working to re-use
| battery packs for grid batteries.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| If it's any reassurance, I think the consensus is that
| the rate of degradation of your battery will slow
| considerably once it gets past 20% (of the order of 1-2%
| per year, i.e. the battery will outlast the rest of the
| vehicle by a long way) [0].
|
| 0. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07/heres-one-way-we-
| know-t...
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think it's perfectly sensible to charge it at work to full,
| then partially discharge in the evening after coming back
| home. Especially since that energy could mostly power your
| own home. If you have enough left in the morning to drive
| back to work it would be fine.
|
| Basically you would haul (hopefully cheap) electricity form
| your work, to your home to use it in the evening.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| If you set the app to allow it to be drained overnight, then
| it may be drained overnight. Similar to forgetting to pump
| gas into the tank and getting stranded in the middle of
| nowhere. Most people are a bit smarter than that.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| 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.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Seems like an easy solution would be for the car to provide
| energy for the house, rather than the entire grid, and reduce
| overall load.
| baq wrote:
| Not too much of a difference if the house is connected to
| the grid.
| fluoridation wrote:
| What do you mean? If the house takes less energy from the
| grid (compared to doing nothing) it's effectively the
| same as if the house uses the same energy while also
| feeding the grid with the car's battery. The former,
| however, takes less additional infrastructure.
| michaelt wrote:
| It means you don't need any mechanism to compensate the
| vehicle owner for using their battery.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Oh yes, the return on investment is very convincing for most
| of the big companies! Like Uber: https://uberlosses.com/
| majoe wrote:
| > V2G is a pipe dream.
|
| Seems a bit early to come to this conclusion, but I would
| also suspect, that the value of a parking garage full of EVs
| is not in providing energy to the grid but as a large scale
| consumer for load shaping.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Paid for supplying demand!
|
| I'll believe that when I see it.
| tomrod wrote:
| Spot pricing in energy markets goes negative when there is
| too much energy in the grid. Someone gets paid to take it
| out.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Never the retail customer
| Youden wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > That means LiPo.
|
| IIRC the most popular EV battery technology today is LFP.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| 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.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Yeah, most commutes are less than 100 km but would you buy a
| car with 100-200km range? How's your range anxiety?
|
| I'm not so sure about less resources as the majority of the
| car is still required only smaller battery.
| jansan wrote:
| A quick reminder that South Korea is closer to the equator than
| Spain or Greece.
| metabagel wrote:
| And South Korea is at about the same latitude as Tennessee and
| North Carolina.
| jansan wrote:
| I will never stop to amaze me how far to the south the USA is
| compared to Europe on average. I live near Berlin and even
| most Canadians live further to the south than me.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Europe is uniquely hot for how far North it is. It's due to
| Gulf Stream and we might lose it at some point as the
| climate change progresses.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| The West coast is much more similar though. Paris is at a
| latitude between Seattle and Vancouver while San
| Francisco is a little south of Lisbon. Both have pretty
| comparable climates.
| jldugger wrote:
| In contrast, it will never amaze me how far north Europe
| is. Canada weather is cold and yet y'all live even further
| north!
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Gulf Stream.
|
| AMOC collapse will be brutal.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overtu
| rnin...>
| aegypti wrote:
| That is generally _worse_ for PV potential, clouds, rain etc
| jandrese wrote:
| Being further north does have some advantages. If the panels
| are angled more to get a better view of the sun they will
| also be better at shedding snow loads.
| lostlogin wrote:
| There was a recent discussion here on vertical panels. The
| data was better than I'd have guessed.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45414215
| whatevaa wrote:
| The amount of power you get from panels in winter is
| pathetically low with or without snow.
| testing22321 wrote:
| 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.
| whatevaa wrote:
| You have a big peek in early summer/late spring and a
| nosedive during winter. Still need generation capacity for
| winter.
| tejohnso wrote:
| Why aren't new developments including rooftop solar as a
| standard selling feature? If it makes sense it should be a no
| brainer right? Your new $800,000 home comes with a solar
| installation so you never pay for heating, cooling, power
| supply.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| New homes should be built with
|
| 1) EV chargers or 240V outlets in the garage
|
| 2) Heat pump water heater
|
| 3) Heat pump for HVAC
|
| 4) Induction stove
|
| 5) Solar panels, better yet, solar roofs
|
| 6) Main panel that supports V2X (vehicle to home, to grid)
|
| 7) Ethernet cabling throughout, we can make most devices
| PoE, also enable smart home
|
| This can eliminate $ 1,000+ energy bills, which are now
| split between gas bills for two cars, natural gas for the
| water heater, heating, and cooking.
| Muromec wrote:
| Sounds a lot like actual building requirements in the
| Netherlands, except 6 and 7, because the city hall hates
| cars and doesn't care much about IOT
| mattlondon wrote:
| I believe this is due in the UK (from 2027) which is quite
| far north from the equator: new homes need a certain
| percentage of the roof covered in solar cells.
|
| It won't be enough to be self sufficient but it does offset
| a bit I guess
| edent wrote:
| My London-based solar panels make us (net) self
| sufficient across the year.
|
| They produce about 3,800kWh every year - which is bang on
| the average home electrical consumption.
|
| Even in winter they offset our bills by a decent amount.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Labor and permitting costs.
|
| Those are already a large part in housing costs, and
| rooftop solar panels? That's both roofing work and
| installation of advanced electric equipment. And the market
| doesn't seem to have that many people who base their buying
| decisions on whether the house has solar panels installed.
|
| Labor costs are going to stick around until we get humanoid
| robots to work well. But the permitting situation could
| sure benefit from a lot of regulation being purged.
| jopsen wrote:
| 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).
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| I hope this doesn't result in new parking lots to
| "coincidentally" only have 79 parking lots.
| hinkley wrote:
| Some of us wouldn't minds so much. That puts a cap on how car
| focused commercial real estate can be.
| hinkley wrote:
| 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.
| Havoc wrote:
| 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
| rurp wrote:
| 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.
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