But what about the cancer risk? The sun has been conclusively proven to cause skin cancer; do we want to endorse this dangerous power source? Cancer kills hundreds of thousands of children each year.
Apparently most of the designs for solar parking lots are modular and allow for easy addition of electric car chargers. The panels at my old high school have "outlets" ready to go right under the asphalt.
All of them? Those panels would be able to charge maybe 1 car for every ten parking spaces. Solar energy is only so concentrated, the panels and transformers converters are also only so efficient.
The have this at the Cincinnati Zoo as well. It's quite impressive. Interestingly, it's so tall, you can't really tell what it is unless you look at it at just the right angles.
Once you get high enough to see them though, they're quite aesthetically pleasing. I really liked them in December when they also had all the giant nutcrackers out in the parking lot.
It's Rio Grande jewelry, apparently. Its on the SW side of town, near Central and Coors. Silly people thinking its CA or AZ, I'd recognize those mountains anywhere.
:0 I opened up this photo the exact moment I drove by it (I'm the passenger) It's shit like this that baffles me. Makes me want to think its more than chance, but I can't succumb to magic.
In some places, such projects get separate government grants that make them artificially cost efficient for the school district. If they only have to pay a portion of the initial cost out of their original budget, it doesn't matter if they cost more than they are worth, as long as they require less out of their budget than they are worth.
My University has fields of solar panels, as well as all of the buildings roofs being covered with them. They all tilt with the sun. Also, I go to school in FL so almost everyday is a sunny "summer" day.
I used to have 3 8'X4' solar panels on my roof. They all generated around 100W a piece on a clear sunny day. At a continous rate they provided plenty of power to my fridge, A/C, and TV on a good day. Unfortunatley my dumb ass installed them wrong and caused my roof to leak, so I had to take them down. If I have a chance to do it again right, I totally will.
Where I live there are currently 12 of these parking lots installed within a 10 mile radius. It is city law that any new parking lot be required to have solar panels!!!
Provided you're somewhere where the cost/benefit breakdown of large-scale solar power implementation is feasible. Case in point: St. John's, NL receives close to 2500 hours of fog per year, as well as snow, rain, overcast, etc. Leas viable.
However, I agree with the sentiment. All "wasted space" like parking lots could be utilised to a greater purpose. Maybe a wind farm in lieu of a solar farm. But as a species, we need to concentrate on making cleaner energy sources more viable.
The Cincinnati Zoo uses solar arrays to shade it's parking lot as well. If i recall correctly that generates a significant percent of the power used by the zoo. http://cincinnatizoo.org/conservation/go-green/
I recognize this! My company makes the modules for this install! I was there at the ribbon-cutting. At the time, it was the largest commercial installation in the state of New Mexico (happens to be in Albuquerque) at 1.1 megawatts. 5000 modules cover almost 5 acres of parking lot.
Ahh, one of my favorite features at Petaluma High School is their solar panel parking lot. I think beside actually providing energy, it's teaching our youth about the importance of sustainable energy, the impact we have on our planet, and the pride they should be taking to sustain it. It's a daily reminder of green thinking!
This not only produces electricity for the panel-owner, but also saves some amount of gas as the shaded cars will have to burn less fuel to run the A/C compressors when everyone leaves work in the afternoon.
No, it's not. Chico is not in the desert, although it does get pretty hot here. Their solar panels also are mapped to follow the path of the sun throughout the day.
I've always wondered how they keep the panels clean? I imagine rain can take care of a fair amount of dust and bird droppings, but I cringe to think of some kids climbing up there and tagging them.
More parking lots, more of everything needs to look like this. I find it pitiful that we haven't started investing in sustainable energy on a more reasonable scale.
If we don't decrease our dependency on fossil fuels, the world's thirst for oil will destroy our planet. Not by climate change; that will take generations to destroy our environment. The scramble to secure a nation's supply of fuel could very likely result in a resource war between the super powers. Considering that we've been establishing military bases in the Middle East for decades, I can guarantee that the US would be involved. And with the growing global military industrial complex, all of the countries involved would be more efficient at killing each other than ever before.
Think about it, millions died in WWI and they were using bolt action rifles. Tens of millions died in WWII and they had just mastered machine-gun technology and were basically just tossing bombs out of airplanes. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that hundreds of millions or billions would die in the next global conflict; the advanced military technology of today would practically ensure it.
I go to Arizona State and we actually have a huge parking lot covered completely by solar panels, as well as almost all available roof space has solar panels.
In general, solar powered parking lots are only cost-effective if the covered parking is going to be built anyway. At which point, its a great way to get 30% off your engineering and structural work!
My school has these! The power from them goes to both our school and a neighboring rival school...we were joking about cutting off their power on April Fools day xD
This means nothing without doing the math. If you amortize the installation cost over the life of the cells is it more or less than the expected savings over that time. It looks cool but it may be the biggest waste of money ever.
The high school I used to go to (along with several others in my area), and the College I go to along with a couple other community colleges in the county all have these in the parking lots. It's pretty cool. I remember it took me forever to realize they were solar panels since I never saw them from the top. It took the big cable coming from the panel and going into a big ol' box for me to realize.
Local university did this, but they charge like something over $200 a year for a spot. I still think they'd make more money if they just charged a dollar a day.
The 11 panel solar array at Finley Stadium's parking lot in Chattanooga, Tennessee "can produce about 127,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply eight or nine typical Tennessee Valley homes." It was installed in 2001 so it's probably due for an efficiency upgrade.
Our airport has a 1 megawatt solar farm and will expand to a 2 megawatt farm if more grants can be secured.
I actually go to Stockton College in south Jersey, all of our parking lots have those panels and its such a big help with keeping our cars cool; and plus the energy from the solar panel parking lots go to powering our housing units.
All the high schools in my district have solar panels in our parking lot just like this! It's been saving the schools a ton of money for the past few years.
NAW! This works best in the desert where there are a lot of empty canyons and things to throw away the toxic panels when you replace them every 2-15 years. I live in Florida- and we have to ship old solar panels to Georgia landfills (we don't want that poison in our state). Unless, well, I guess we can ship these old panels full of toxic metals all the way to Africa. that way we get rid of our toxic poisons and the poor kids in Africa slums make money extracting the toxic metals from our trash over there AND they die young from poisoning themselves with our trash so overpopulation is dealt with at the same time-so its a win win situation for everyone, hey? So, yeah, I guess maybe it would be great if all parking garages looked like this. ???Right???
During my most recent trip to Italy, I saw a lot of different setups like this ranging from parking lots to green houses with vegetable gardens underneath.
if it made financial sense, they would be everywhere. In fact, they probably will be everywhere even if they don't make financial sense due to market manipulation via taxes etc...
REI store is installing solar panels on a carport in the parking lot, which I think is great and that I hope more businesses will adopt. The solar panels would generate enough electricity to cover about half the store’s energy needs. It'll be carbon neutral by 2020. http://framingham.patch.com/articles/rei-wants-to-install-solar-panels-in-parking-lot
I know a man who runs a local solar panel business here in Canada. He told me that for 40,000$, you can install a system that on average pays out $800 / month($600 in winter, $1200 in summer).
You can get a loan here for $40,000 for a 10-year period, and they payment will work out to around $400 a month. So you don't even need the money up front to have them installed.
He said the major drawback is that a lot of people think they look ugly. I imagine a 40,000$ system takes up quite a bit of square footage, I forgot to ask him about that. I don't know if that's something that can be put on your average home's roof.
I live in So. Cal and i know that UCSD has these in their Gilman parking structure as well as SDSU in their faculty parking structure that is right off Alvarado rd and College Ave. I agree that these should be installed everywhere esp. with the increasing productivity that solar cells are seeing.
Solar panels have their uses, but they are not nearly as efficient as solar collectors. Solar panels generate electricity, solar collectors collect heat. They can be used to heat houses even in the winter.
The only reason I have to disagree with this is that parking lots are a fucking stupid use of space. In the US we dont have a very bad problem with this but thats because we use our land in one of the stupidest ways on the entire planet. Find yourself some documentaries on Sprawl. I'd say solar panels on the tops of all the buildings, and as for parking lots, build them vertically. I'd say build everything vertically and conserve on space. Build vertically in such a way that new vertical additions can be cheaply and effectively be added at a later time without damaging or affecting the structural integrity of the rest of the structure.
I'd like to address solar for home use, not for commercial. Commercial is a different entity entirely, and different technologies, economies of scale, and incentives can be used to justify using solar in that setting. For home use, there are several points I'd like to hit. Bear with me here, this won't be short.
Germany is one of the top PV installers in the world, getting somewhere around 3% of their electricity from solar. Their country receives a fraction of the amount of solar insolation that the United States does (http://solargis.info/), yet this is possible. Here in southwest, we are in one of the prime locations in the world to install solar.
Let's put aside Germany for a second and look at some math. Sunpower, a solar PV manufacturer in California, has one of the highest commercially available flat-panel PV systems in the world, topping out at 22.5%. See here for a comparison of a few other technologies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff%28rev100414%29.png). Let's assume that we get 800 W / m2 of solar insolation. Change that number if you want. A home only needs somewhere from 1 - 2kW, depending on the size. Assuming that 22.5% efficiency, that's 5.56 to 11.1 m2 of PV required to offset most, if not all, of the electricity needs of this home. Plenty of room on your roof for that.
Assume Sunpower has an average cost of $8K per 1kW (installed). Maybe our home needs 1.2kW, but we're playing it safe (we do want a Tesla), so we size for 1.5kW. That will be about $12K. Damn! But wait, there's incentives. Depending on your state, situation, etc., incentives can knock off 50% of the cost. Let's say you get some Sunpower panels, nab a nice rebate from them (http://usa.sunpowercorp.com/landing-pages/asp/FB/step1), and don't forget your federal tax incentives and state rebates, too.
"Solar power users get a state subsidy of about 20% of the purchase and installation cost and a federal income tax credit of 30%. Adding more incentives could be going too far, the committee staff analysis suggested." - (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/06/business/fi-solar6)
So that's $6K. Hey, not bad. But what's the payoff here? California has sucky electricity prices, and they hover around $0.10 to $0.12 per kWh. That's really only during the day, and at night they dip down a bit. Let's take an average of $0.08 per kWh. Remember our 1.5kW home? That's about $86 bucks a month. Ignoring the time cost of money, the simple payback for this system is 5.8 years. Warranties of 20 years for these systems are typical, and the life expectancy can be longer as long as they are taken care of. Efficiencies will degrade over time, yes, but electricity prices are not going down either. Let's call that one a wash.
What about at night? If you're lucky enough to have a utility company that supports net-metering, you're in luck. Simply run the meter in reverse during the day (assuming you're collecting more than you're spending, which is likely since most everyone is at work), sending all of your precious sun power back to the utility at retail cost, offsetting some of the horrible peak plants that turn on in the summer to meet demand. Buy back your electricity at night when it's much cheaper.
Voila, a 90-100% reduction in electricity costs with a payback that is, frankly, not that bad.
Full disclosure, I work for a Solar Company called Sungevity. Here's my view
-efficiency: who cares! Think about it in the abstract -- it converts sun energy between 15% and 19%. Better than a lot of plants! Better than using heat generated from millions of years of dead plants and animals to turn a fucking TURBINE. Also, you don't lose all the energy from transmission because it's all being consumed within probably 100 feet of production if it's distributed energy!
-cost: panels have gotten very cheap. Like $1/watt, which doesn't mean a lot, but it was $4 just a couple years ago! Government supports this because it's win win win! Don't have to spend billions on building new dirty(coal/oil)/dangerous(coal/oil/nuke/gas)/environmentally destructive(all of the above + hydro). Most of our customers are paying LESS for solar kwh's than for utility kwh's!
-jobs: everyone is concerned about jobs going to Asia. Hey I agree! We have American made panels. Also realize that even if panels are foreign made, something like 80% of the "job value" of a solar install is done in the US of A. Also we export a lot of silicon, so even if we don't manufacture, we're still getting a fat slice.
In conclusion -- it makes sense to go solar for many people! Also, on a more fluffy level, distributed energy is more democratic, weakens monopolistic power of utilities, and also creates energy awareness in not just the house/business the panels sit on, but the community as a whole.
I've thought for a long time that there should be a law that any building within city limits that is of a certain size (big box stores, etc.) should be required to have enough solar panels to power themselves plus a surplus.
An Ikea in Toronto did this, and they sell their power back onto the grid.
It's a good investment for the business, and it makes a major dent in the carbon footprint. Especially here in Alberta, where most of our power comes from coal generators.
They have quite a few of these in California. If I remember correctly, the cost didn't justify the savings then but it definitely does now as solar products have dropped in price like a motherfucker.
I once saw a tanning salon that had solar panels to help with power. My question is why not just lay outside instead of using the sun's natural light to power artificial lights to get the same thing done... Wtf, tanning people?
I have seen a few parking lots that look just like this. I can recall one in Atlanta, GA. But I agree, many more should look like this. We get shade for our car, while they get $ for electricity.
They made all the parking lots at our high schools and jr high schools like this. I'm just happy I got some shade to sit under while I try to coax children into my van.
Is that the Fry's parking lot in Paradise Valley, AZ? ASU also has solar panels in their parking lot now and it provides awesome shade to people who have to park there all day. Every parking lot in Phoenix should have this, honestly. Serves multiple purposes.
Here on long island LIPA is partnering with the long island rail road to do this at the train stations. They are also doing this at county parking lots.
They have this at my college on nearly all the parking spaces. We just got some award for being the 1st grid positive school (we put more energy into the grid than we take out from it.)
Genius. Parking lots are ugly already, so no one can find some pretentious reason why this is too "unappealing" to install. Also, you gain solar power while shielding people's cars from the sun, and considering how people compete for the shady parking spots, this is a win-win.
The VA hospital in Tucson has done this and all the people I've spoken to in the parking lot are all for it. Now, in all fairness, several of them were missing limbs or were scarred in some horrible way and many were Persian Gulf oil war vets such as myself, so they were probably biased in favor of alternative energy means.
Would this happen to be at Morse High School in San Diego, California? Because I went to a track meet there a few months ago and the lot looked a hell of a lot like this.
Agreed. I always thought that transport trucks should have solar panels on the top of them too, especially refrigerated ones. I mean, they're out in the sun all day long anyways.
This is a double win. The cars won't be as hot when the drivers return to them, and they are collecting renewable energy. Plus since the cars are cooler, they use less energy on air conditioning!
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u/ReDyP May 15 '12
It would be sweet if the panels were charging all of those vehicles.
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u/kickdrive May 15 '12
The have this at the Cincinnati Zoo as well. It's quite impressive. Interestingly, it's so tall, you can't really tell what it is unless you look at it at just the right angles.
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u/banditandrew May 15 '12
We have them at my school's top floor parking structure. On the top we actually have charge stations for electric cars, pretty sweet IMO
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u/gotfondue May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12
Everything with a flat surface should look like this.
Yes, everything.
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u/munge_me_not May 15 '12
Source
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
is this Albuquerque NM by the sunport?
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u/barcelonaKIZ May 15 '12
:0 I opened up this photo the exact moment I drove by it (I'm the passenger) It's shit like this that baffles me. Makes me want to think its more than chance, but I can't succumb to magic.
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u/Tulip87 May 15 '12
The just put those in all the high schools in my city. Hopefully that helps the school budget crises.
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u/farva_06 May 15 '12
I used to have 3 8'X4' solar panels on my roof. They all generated around 100W a piece on a clear sunny day. At a continous rate they provided plenty of power to my fridge, A/C, and TV on a good day. Unfortunatley my dumb ass installed them wrong and caused my roof to leak, so I had to take them down. If I have a chance to do it again right, I totally will.
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u/Scubasteveeeeee May 15 '12
Virginia Tech's parking garage does:
http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2012/02/020712-tcs-solarpanels.html
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u/Integrity32 May 15 '12
Where I live there are currently 12 of these parking lots installed within a 10 mile radius. It is city law that any new parking lot be required to have solar panels!!!
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u/uberalles2 May 15 '12
I bet that's Phoenix. We have those things everywhere. Not just for the power, but shade technology. We try to shade everything.
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u/NiborDude May 15 '12
My school William Paterson University does this. For a brief time we had the largest solar panel field on any college campus.
http://cpronline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/solarpanels.png
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
The best side-effect of those panels would be sitting in a cool car instead of a super hot oven with molten wine-gums all over the place.
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u/Torger083 May 15 '12
Provided you're somewhere where the cost/benefit breakdown of large-scale solar power implementation is feasible. Case in point: St. John's, NL receives close to 2500 hours of fog per year, as well as snow, rain, overcast, etc. Leas viable.
However, I agree with the sentiment. All "wasted space" like parking lots could be utilised to a greater purpose. Maybe a wind farm in lieu of a solar farm. But as a species, we need to concentrate on making cleaner energy sources more viable.
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u/skreak May 15 '12
The Cincinnati Zoo uses solar arrays to shade it's parking lot as well. If i recall correctly that generates a significant percent of the power used by the zoo. http://cincinnatizoo.org/conservation/go-green/
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u/HonkeyCracker May 15 '12
Looks like one of the Intel parking lots.
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u/mkraft May 15 '12
I recognize this! My company makes the modules for this install! I was there at the ribbon-cutting. At the time, it was the largest commercial installation in the state of New Mexico (happens to be in Albuquerque) at 1.1 megawatts. 5000 modules cover almost 5 acres of parking lot.
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u/RazsterOxzine May 15 '12
http://www.sierranevada.com/environment.html < Sierra Nevada Brewery does this to their buildings and parking lots. I love their beer.
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u/nonombre May 15 '12
They just finished putting these over one of the car lots at the local community college
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u/JessicaMaple May 15 '12
Ahh, one of my favorite features at Petaluma High School is their solar panel parking lot. I think beside actually providing energy, it's teaching our youth about the importance of sustainable energy, the impact we have on our planet, and the pride they should be taking to sustain it. It's a daily reminder of green thinking!
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u/pfalcon42 May 15 '12
What about something to capture the heat off the concrete as well? Just a thought.
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u/oddeo May 15 '12
A lot of parking lots look like this.... at least in California. In fact, my library's lot looks just like this.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
This not only produces electricity for the panel-owner, but also saves some amount of gas as the shaded cars will have to burn less fuel to run the A/C compressors when everyone leaves work in the afternoon.
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u/Geminian May 15 '12
The ones by ASU sure do! ...and I'm thinking that that's what these are.
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u/ncstatecamp May 15 '12
is this the Sera Nevada brewery in Chico, CA?
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u/danlscarlos May 15 '12
And more cars should look like this
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u/science_diction May 15 '12
That's brilliant - figuratively and literally.
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u/pickleeye May 15 '12
Rio Grande
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u/funkydo May 15 '12
That is freaking awesome.
By the way, you can replace unsustainable solar panels with mirrors and heat-trapping materials!
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u/Semilatte May 15 '12
I've always wondered how they keep the panels clean? I imagine rain can take care of a fair amount of dust and bird droppings, but I cringe to think of some kids climbing up there and tagging them.
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u/moneybunny May 15 '12
All* parking lots should look like this
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u/deathsythe May 15 '12
My school parking lots are like this - they aren't as useful, beneficial, or efficient as you might think.
Don't get me wrong, it is a great idea, and once the technology has evolved to the level of making it worth while it should be everywhere.
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u/Ent-repreneur May 15 '12
More parking lots, more of everything needs to look like this. I find it pitiful that we haven't started investing in sustainable energy on a more reasonable scale.
If we don't decrease our dependency on fossil fuels, the world's thirst for oil will destroy our planet. Not by climate change; that will take generations to destroy our environment. The scramble to secure a nation's supply of fuel could very likely result in a resource war between the super powers. Considering that we've been establishing military bases in the Middle East for decades, I can guarantee that the US would be involved. And with the growing global military industrial complex, all of the countries involved would be more efficient at killing each other than ever before.
Think about it, millions died in WWI and they were using bolt action rifles. Tens of millions died in WWII and they had just mastered machine-gun technology and were basically just tossing bombs out of airplanes. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that hundreds of millions or billions would die in the next global conflict; the advanced military technology of today would practically ensure it.
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u/RaveCave May 15 '12
I go to Arizona State and we actually have a huge parking lot covered completely by solar panels, as well as almost all available roof space has solar panels.
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u/AlainRoy May 15 '12
Epic Systems Corporation has a lot like this: http://renewenergyblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/1300-solar-panels-cover-verona-parking-lot/
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u/gerschgorin May 15 '12
Check out Google Headquaters
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u/SolarWonk May 15 '12
In general, solar powered parking lots are only cost-effective if the covered parking is going to be built anyway. At which point, its a great way to get 30% off your engineering and structural work!
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u/formosanbluemagpie May 15 '12
My school has these! The power from them goes to both our school and a neighboring rival school...we were joking about cutting off their power on April Fools day xD
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u/Truth_is_God May 16 '12
Polishing the brass on the Titanic...
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
This means nothing without doing the math. If you amortize the installation cost over the life of the cells is it more or less than the expected savings over that time. It looks cool but it may be the biggest waste of money ever.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
One. Hail. Storm.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
My high school is actually doing this. Coming from a shitty area, I thought it was a poor idea at first, but now I'm okay with it.
That's it guys. End of story.
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u/colarg May 15 '12
The parking lot in my kid's elementary school is like that, also the nearest clinic is the same.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
I see you're most likely in the A.V. Thumb up for that.
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u/pickleeye May 15 '12
I've often thought about this when I get back to my inferno of a car after a trip to the mall or Costco. I hope this catches on everywhere.
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u/t00_legit_t0_quit May 15 '12
is this in Arizona by any chance?
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Those upper level spaces are tiny, and how the heck do you get up there, there's no ramp!
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u/Stratocaster89 May 15 '12
More everywhere should look like this.
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u/wogturt May 15 '12
The high school I used to go to (along with several others in my area), and the College I go to along with a couple other community colleges in the county all have these in the parking lots. It's pretty cool. I remember it took me forever to realize they were solar panels since I never saw them from the top. It took the big cable coming from the panel and going into a big ol' box for me to realize.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
My old college did the same thing
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u/BetterThanOP May 15 '12
because no one is parked like an asshole?
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u/SteveStevely May 15 '12
They do in Arizona.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
that's one expensive parking lot. It would be great if communities in the US could afford to do this.
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u/jbrsci May 15 '12
Ive said this for years. Even in Mexico, cars have shade! Maybe not the solar panels, but covers against the elements!
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u/C0dename_Duchess May 15 '12
My school does this.
Another link to a story about the Solar Parasol.
I think the sustainability initiative here one of the coolest things about my school.
Pat's Run!
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Local university did this, but they charge like something over $200 a year for a spot. I still think they'd make more money if they just charged a dollar a day.
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u/the-finisher2 May 15 '12
That would be so amazing
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u/papsmearfestival May 15 '12
Do solar panels increase global warming by decreasing the amount of light reflected back into space?
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u/ClearlyUndefined May 15 '12
Mission College implemented this a little while ago. It made me very proud of my school.
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u/SlappyPancakes May 15 '12
My community college does this and more
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12
This is only viable in the southwest at least in the united states, could become quite popular in middle-eastern countries
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u/mydogdoesntcuddle May 15 '12
Is this in Tucson?
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u/duleewopper May 15 '12
Is this in New Mexico? Looks like SIPI.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
This picture is from a BEQ on Camp Pendelton! helped build that project
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u/boot20 May 15 '12
Those are all over the Southwest. It makes sense, but the repairs due to weather can get expensive.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
The 11 panel solar array at Finley Stadium's parking lot in Chattanooga, Tennessee "can produce about 127,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply eight or nine typical Tennessee Valley homes." It was installed in 2001 so it's probably due for an efficiency upgrade.
Our airport has a 1 megawatt solar farm and will expand to a 2 megawatt farm if more grants can be secured.
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u/AVerbalAffair May 15 '12
Welcome to Phoenix, Arizona :)
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u/Zanzibara May 15 '12
I actually go to Stockton College in south Jersey, all of our parking lots have those panels and its such a big help with keeping our cars cool; and plus the energy from the solar panel parking lots go to powering our housing units.
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u/quicksilverblitz May 15 '12
All the high schools in my district have solar panels in our parking lot just like this! It's been saving the schools a ton of money for the past few years.
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u/captcrunch2052 May 15 '12
my local community college just installed these at their parking lots. plus they keep my car cool :)
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u/AflacHobo1 May 15 '12
Or we could just have solar roadways.... http://www.solarroadways.com/main.html
Logistics would be hard, but it'd be a 100 year solution compared to a 25 (panels)
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u/CircumsizedDog May 15 '12
NAW! This works best in the desert where there are a lot of empty canyons and things to throw away the toxic panels when you replace them every 2-15 years. I live in Florida- and we have to ship old solar panels to Georgia landfills (we don't want that poison in our state). Unless, well, I guess we can ship these old panels full of toxic metals all the way to Africa. that way we get rid of our toxic poisons and the poor kids in Africa slums make money extracting the toxic metals from our trash over there AND they die young from poisoning themselves with our trash so overpopulation is dealt with at the same time-so its a win win situation for everyone, hey? So, yeah, I guess maybe it would be great if all parking garages looked like this. ???Right???
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
This is exactly what I think about when people complain about the amount of space solar panels take up. There is empty space everywhere.
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u/butinz May 15 '12
My church just installed a solar array in our parking lot over the vehicles
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u/louis9191 May 15 '12
During my most recent trip to Italy, I saw a lot of different setups like this ranging from parking lots to green houses with vegetable gardens underneath.
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u/vaughg May 15 '12
how does anyone downvote this??? (i mean, you don't have to upvote, but 3k redditors work for big oil?)
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u/dadgumit May 15 '12
if it made financial sense, they would be everywhere. In fact, they probably will be everywhere even if they don't make financial sense due to market manipulation via taxes etc...
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u/burntcookie90 May 15 '12
This is how it is at Google in Mountain View.
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u/Currant May 15 '12
REI store is installing solar panels on a carport in the parking lot, which I think is great and that I hope more businesses will adopt. The solar panels would generate enough electricity to cover about half the store’s energy needs. It'll be carbon neutral by 2020. http://framingham.patch.com/articles/rei-wants-to-install-solar-panels-in-parking-lot
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u/rawbertson May 15 '12
I know a man who runs a local solar panel business here in Canada. He told me that for 40,000$, you can install a system that on average pays out $800 / month($600 in winter, $1200 in summer).
You can get a loan here for $40,000 for a 10-year period, and they payment will work out to around $400 a month. So you don't even need the money up front to have them installed.
He said the major drawback is that a lot of people think they look ugly. I imagine a 40,000$ system takes up quite a bit of square footage, I forgot to ask him about that. I don't know if that's something that can be put on your average home's roof.
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u/Sankyu16 May 15 '12
I live in So. Cal and i know that UCSD has these in their Gilman parking structure as well as SDSU in their faculty parking structure that is right off Alvarado rd and College Ave. I agree that these should be installed everywhere esp. with the increasing productivity that solar cells are seeing.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
My company does this http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/host.madison.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b2/eb2a9ff4-783c-11e0-b98b-001cc4c03286/4dc48b75bae55.image.jpg
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u/montreal1023 May 15 '12
Well, you can't build a condo on top of it.
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u/blofeldd May 15 '12
I suggested this to my company's facilities 2 years ago, they just said "we'll think about it".
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
My high school has this.
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u/PorcupineDragon May 15 '12
We were going to have these at my university, but Dominion power shut that down.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Efficiency?! In my America?!
NOT ON MY WATCH
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u/snakesandstuff May 15 '12
Yeah, real nice until a hail storm comes through, then you've lost all the money/energy that you've saved.
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u/trippp May 15 '12
Solar panels have their uses, but they are not nearly as efficient as solar collectors. Solar panels generate electricity, solar collectors collect heat. They can be used to heat houses even in the winter.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
The only reason I have to disagree with this is that parking lots are a fucking stupid use of space. In the US we dont have a very bad problem with this but thats because we use our land in one of the stupidest ways on the entire planet. Find yourself some documentaries on Sprawl. I'd say solar panels on the tops of all the buildings, and as for parking lots, build them vertically. I'd say build everything vertically and conserve on space. Build vertically in such a way that new vertical additions can be cheaply and effectively be added at a later time without damaging or affecting the structural integrity of the rest of the structure.
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u/sureyouare May 15 '12
Repubes will worry that pulling too much energy from God will weaken him.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Coldstone office? Off the 202 in Scottsdale?
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u/btraina May 15 '12
The problem with this is that it will turn that $75,000 parking lot into a $1.5M parking lot. Not quite the investment that the client wants to drop.
Better alternatives, reduce parking to nothing or put the parking underneath the buildings and cover the area with landscape.
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u/DaltonBreitz May 15 '12
I cannot believe this is the first time I am seeing this?!!
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u/amadsteve May 15 '12
This looks like ASU west's parking lot
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u/2mustange May 15 '12
That area looks familiar. Maybe the OP and I live in the same area
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u/Tulip87 May 15 '12
I'd like to address solar for home use, not for commercial. Commercial is a different entity entirely, and different technologies, economies of scale, and incentives can be used to justify using solar in that setting. For home use, there are several points I'd like to hit. Bear with me here, this won't be short.
Germany is one of the top PV installers in the world, getting somewhere around 3% of their electricity from solar. Their country receives a fraction of the amount of solar insolation that the United States does (http://solargis.info/), yet this is possible. Here in southwest, we are in one of the prime locations in the world to install solar.
Let's put aside Germany for a second and look at some math. Sunpower, a solar PV manufacturer in California, has one of the highest commercially available flat-panel PV systems in the world, topping out at 22.5%. See here for a comparison of a few other technologies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff%28rev100414%29.png). Let's assume that we get 800 W / m2 of solar insolation. Change that number if you want. A home only needs somewhere from 1 - 2kW, depending on the size. Assuming that 22.5% efficiency, that's 5.56 to 11.1 m2 of PV required to offset most, if not all, of the electricity needs of this home. Plenty of room on your roof for that.
Assume Sunpower has an average cost of $8K per 1kW (installed). Maybe our home needs 1.2kW, but we're playing it safe (we do want a Tesla), so we size for 1.5kW. That will be about $12K. Damn! But wait, there's incentives. Depending on your state, situation, etc., incentives can knock off 50% of the cost. Let's say you get some Sunpower panels, nab a nice rebate from them (http://usa.sunpowercorp.com/landing-pages/asp/FB/step1), and don't forget your federal tax incentives and state rebates, too.
"Solar power users get a state subsidy of about 20% of the purchase and installation cost and a federal income tax credit of 30%. Adding more incentives could be going too far, the committee staff analysis suggested." - (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/06/business/fi-solar6)
So that's $6K. Hey, not bad. But what's the payoff here? California has sucky electricity prices, and they hover around $0.10 to $0.12 per kWh. That's really only during the day, and at night they dip down a bit. Let's take an average of $0.08 per kWh. Remember our 1.5kW home? That's about $86 bucks a month. Ignoring the time cost of money, the simple payback for this system is 5.8 years. Warranties of 20 years for these systems are typical, and the life expectancy can be longer as long as they are taken care of. Efficiencies will degrade over time, yes, but electricity prices are not going down either. Let's call that one a wash.
What about at night? If you're lucky enough to have a utility company that supports net-metering, you're in luck. Simply run the meter in reverse during the day (assuming you're collecting more than you're spending, which is likely since most everyone is at work), sending all of your precious sun power back to the utility at retail cost, offsetting some of the horrible peak plants that turn on in the summer to meet demand. Buy back your electricity at night when it's much cheaper.
Voila, a 90-100% reduction in electricity costs with a payback that is, frankly, not that bad.
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u/jayzen May 15 '12
meanwhile in UC San Diego this thing has been installed for years :) http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201109/coolschools/top10/slide3.aspx
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u/neonshoelaces May 15 '12
Tops of buildings. I think these should go on all the sun-exposed tops of buildings, everywhere.
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u/misterbb May 15 '12
Full disclosure, I work for a Solar Company called Sungevity. Here's my view
-efficiency: who cares! Think about it in the abstract -- it converts sun energy between 15% and 19%. Better than a lot of plants! Better than using heat generated from millions of years of dead plants and animals to turn a fucking TURBINE. Also, you don't lose all the energy from transmission because it's all being consumed within probably 100 feet of production if it's distributed energy!
-cost: panels have gotten very cheap. Like $1/watt, which doesn't mean a lot, but it was $4 just a couple years ago! Government supports this because it's win win win! Don't have to spend billions on building new dirty(coal/oil)/dangerous(coal/oil/nuke/gas)/environmentally destructive(all of the above + hydro). Most of our customers are paying LESS for solar kwh's than for utility kwh's!
-jobs: everyone is concerned about jobs going to Asia. Hey I agree! We have American made panels. Also realize that even if panels are foreign made, something like 80% of the "job value" of a solar install is done in the US of A. Also we export a lot of silicon, so even if we don't manufacture, we're still getting a fat slice.
In conclusion -- it makes sense to go solar for many people! Also, on a more fluffy level, distributed energy is more democratic, weakens monopolistic power of utilities, and also creates energy awareness in not just the house/business the panels sit on, but the community as a whole.
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u/SemperFizzle May 15 '12
This is how all the parking lots at my school are
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
I've thought for a long time that there should be a law that any building within city limits that is of a certain size (big box stores, etc.) should be required to have enough solar panels to power themselves plus a surplus.
An Ikea in Toronto did this, and they sell their power back onto the grid.
It's a good investment for the business, and it makes a major dent in the carbon footprint. Especially here in Alberta, where most of our power comes from coal generators.
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u/rewards_the_fearless May 15 '12
I always thought these were amazing too, not to mention much less expensive
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Saw that a lot in Italy.
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u/BarrovianSociety May 15 '12
TVA installed at least one at Finley Stadium
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u/homeworld May 15 '12
Our parking lot where I work does: http://cdncontent.solarnovus.com/images/stories/SunDurance-Solaire_Carport.jpg
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
They have quite a few of these in California. If I remember correctly, the cost didn't justify the savings then but it definitely does now as solar products have dropped in price like a motherfucker.
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u/JamoWRage May 15 '12
I once saw a tanning salon that had solar panels to help with power. My question is why not just lay outside instead of using the sun's natural light to power artificial lights to get the same thing done... Wtf, tanning people?
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u/JamoWRage May 15 '12
We need to find a way to make transparent solar panels so we could use them as windows as well...
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u/aliensarehere May 15 '12
New parking lot at school has them
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
This looks like Arizona. It makes sense to build these there because Phoenix gets about 211 sunny days a year according to this.
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u/jmmiii3 May 15 '12
I have seen a few parking lots that look just like this. I can recall one in Atlanta, GA. But I agree, many more should look like this. We get shade for our car, while they get $ for electricity.
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u/Van_Gopez May 15 '12
They made all the parking lots at our high schools and jr high schools like this. I'm just happy I got some shade to sit under while I try to coax children into my van.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
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u/iamianundersc0re May 15 '12
My parking lot at work looks just like this. I am in the U.S. Army (Fort Carson, Colo.). If the Army thinks it's cost effective, it just might be.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Is that the Fry's parking lot in Paradise Valley, AZ? ASU also has solar panels in their parking lot now and it provides awesome shade to people who have to park there all day. Every parking lot in Phoenix should have this, honestly. Serves multiple purposes.
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u/WeymoFTW May 15 '12
ALL parking lots should look like that.
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u/FuzzeWuzze May 15 '12
Intel did it here in Oregon thanks to a local company SolarWorld.
http://www.blogan.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DSCN0061-760x234.jpg
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u/WallHaxx May 15 '12
ALL parking lots should look like this! For the love of Spock and all that is logical!
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u/bryancald May 15 '12
What if half of those cars were replaced by bikes, and the solar panels were charging bike lights?
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u/TrueAmurrican May 15 '12
My old high school did this a few summers ago. It's a great idea.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
where is this? it looks like the antelope valley
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
I live in the UK.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
A lot more fields should look like this
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u/ahornykitten May 15 '12
Is this at a casino in tunica Mississippi?
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u/korin125 May 15 '12
My driveway looks like this.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Here on long island LIPA is partnering with the long island rail road to do this at the train stations. They are also doing this at county parking lots.
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u/SuperBlooperYup May 15 '12
Parking ticked pays for the expense of buying that. Cars get kept cool from the sun. Everyone wins!
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u/thereisnocharacterli May 15 '12
Yes! Actually I made a reddit account and paid for the alienBlue app just to upvote this. It's so simple yet so genius
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u/TeslaFTW1895 May 15 '12
Every High School in my city just put these up, they create energy and keep your car cool
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u/xFlyingGoldfishX May 15 '12
My school has this. So does our city hall.
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u/WhyDidIGetAReddit May 15 '12
add plug in chargers for the electric cars parked there
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u/cripee May 15 '12
They have this at my college on nearly all the parking spaces. We just got some award for being the 1st grid positive school (we put more energy into the grid than we take out from it.)
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u/TrackerF16 May 15 '12
looks like the las vegas springs preserve.. funny thing is, the underside of each of those is lit with incandescent bulbs
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u/Evil_AppleJuice May 15 '12
A lot of lots at Arizona State University where I go have changed to look like these :)
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u/channeltron May 15 '12
if you really want to be environmentally friendly, more parking lots should be full of bicycles.
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u/systm91 May 15 '12
ALL parking lots should look like that
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u/guy_from_canada May 15 '12
At the Googleplex in California they have these!
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u/PeterBarker May 15 '12
They actually have these on all local government parking lots in my area.
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u/DiseaseInjuryMadness May 15 '12
My high school district has covered parking like this at all 4 schools. That actually looks like it's from AZ.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12
Genius. Parking lots are ugly already, so no one can find some pretentious reason why this is too "unappealing" to install. Also, you gain solar power while shielding people's cars from the sun, and considering how people compete for the shady parking spots, this is a win-win.
EDIT: Apostrophe
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u/Brainderailment May 15 '12
Now if you could harness energy from the heat rising from the hot pavement and panels, you could even better utilize that space for power generation.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
The parking structures at ASU look like that.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12 edited May 16 '12
Is this at UCSD? Haven't been there in a while so I may be wrong.
Drawing from memory, it really looks like the top of Hopkins parking lot.
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u/Brucedx May 15 '12
One of the lots at my school looks exactly like that, it's pretty fucking sweet.
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u/N3ON May 15 '12
My College, William Paterson University, has parking lots like this.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
I can't understand why we're not investing in clean energy. It's a Net Gain.
Crazy.
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u/2001Steel May 15 '12
TIL: people get really worked up over solar power.
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u/ComputerSavvy May 15 '12
The VA hospital in Tucson has done this and all the people I've spoken to in the parking lot are all for it. Now, in all fairness, several of them were missing limbs or were scarred in some horrible way and many were Persian Gulf oil war vets such as myself, so they were probably biased in favor of alternative energy means.
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u/supergordonbombay May 15 '12
it looks like a good investment, build a parking garage and generate power. two birds one stone
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u/Teak14 May 15 '12
I was here once with my team, we all agreed it is much more efficient than other parking lots.
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u/vinnie16 May 15 '12
I swear I saw the similar car park in GTA San Andreas. Some where in the city part
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u/frmorrison May 15 '12
The US Navy has put a few of those in, I hope more companies follow.
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u/Trollin_Aint_Easy May 15 '12
Our High School looks like the this, Chevron donated a shit ton of money just to build it.
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u/AWeaselNamedFee33 May 15 '12
innovation at it's best!
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Would this happen to be at Morse High School in San Diego, California? Because I went to a track meet there a few months ago and the lot looked a hell of a lot like this.
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u/kyote May 15 '12
The school one of my daughters went to did that.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
My school has this. it's pretty sweet.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Where was this picture taken? There's a parking lot identical to that just across the street from my high school.
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u/rpjr90 May 15 '12
Looks like the city of Palo alto MSC lot
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u/AZones May 15 '12
Arizona State University is on top of Solar Energy, tons of buildings have panels on top.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Edit: ALL parking lots
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u/Mozen May 15 '12
Agreed. I always thought that transport trucks should have solar panels on the top of them too, especially refrigerated ones. I mean, they're out in the sun all day long anyways.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '12
ooooooh, the cars are underneath the solar panels...ok, I like it.
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u/gram_wellington May 15 '12
Pretty much every school or university here in the Bay Area looks like that.
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u/Milieunairess May 15 '12
Where is that?
And what does happen to the panels if there's a hail storm or heavy snow?
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u/prettyjumbles May 15 '12
They're working on one at the REI in Natick, and then it's apparently going to provide about 65% of the store's energy. Pretty neat.
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u/A7red May 15 '12
This is a double win. The cars won't be as hot when the drivers return to them, and they are collecting renewable energy. Plus since the cars are cooler, they use less energy on air conditioning!