Just kind of makes sense no?

The only reason I would be against this is because it disincentivizes removing large parking lots, which are primarily a waste of space. If we could replace some of that wasted space with housing (which could also have solar slapped on it) that would be ideal.

Depends. Some agro-PV systems I have seen are 50% transparent. The plants get a sufficient amount of light, and are protected from hail and heavy rain.

I have even seen a prototype where the pillars for the panels incorporate a rail system on which sowing, weeding, and harvesting tools can run electrically in instead of being pulled by a tractor.

The amount of area needed for solar does not even begin to approach the amount of farm land. People generally aren’t building solar panels on farmland anyways? The largest instillations in the US are in the middle of the fucking desert.

Also get rid of as many parking lots as possible.

There is just so many layers of false and absurd narrative in this.

Plastering agricultural land with parking lots and suburban sprawl is a crime against humanity. This wasteful land use needs to end.

Sort of a lemons-into-lemonade situation. But maybe we shouldn't have paved over prime agricultural land to make parking lots to begin with.

Serious question. Why would it ever need to be one or the other?

There's already solar panels on "prime agricultural land", so what? Land use for solar/green power is so small right now, we shouldn't be trying to regulate where it can't be installed.... Put it everywhere.

On your house, above parking lots, on the rooftops of large warehouses... If there's a surface that's exposed to the sun for 5-8 hours a day, put that shit there. Unless there's a good, practical reason not to...

IDK seems a lot like a false dichotomy to me.

Not all agriculture is done in full sun. Ginseng, coffee and other important crops do best in shade. And you can put the panels up on grazing land. The critters often appreciate the shade which approximates a savanna environment.

Is it prime agriculture land if no one is using it for prime agricultural land?

I live near a school playground in Vancouver. In the summer the kids don't use it because it's too hot and sunny. In the winter kids don't use it because it's wet.

I feel like a solar panel canopy would be 3 birds with one stone.

Certain crops can benefit think from some shade throughout the day:

The study aggregates the effect of agrivoltaics on crop yields at different sites. Tomatoes saw up to double yield with agrivoltaics, while wheat, cucumbers, potatoes and lettuce showed significant negative impacts and corn and grapes showed minimal impact.

I assume that maximal crop output would happen if you just grow things in their optimal climate, but then you rely more heavily on transportation.

You can install solar panels on agricultural land and still farm on it. You just need to install the panels vertically. It’s called agrivoltaics. The photovoltaic cells can actually produce electricity when they are exposed from either side. It’s just that normal solar panels are opaque on the bottoms side. So for a vertical installation you have to use bifacial panels which are transparent on the other side. And the drop in efficiency in a vertical installation isn’t much compared to a traditional installation, since both sides of one panel now produce electricity, even the shaded side that is only exposed to ambient light produces electricity. And they are much more efficient during their peak hours, since it’s much cooler during sunset and sunrise then the middle of the day. PV panels are less efficient when they get hot.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/agrivoltaics-2666910628

https://youtu.be/LqizLQDi9BM

Every installation has benefits and drawbacks:

• If you have humans walking below PV, you must prevent parts falling down
• The support must be quite wide, requiring more expensive carrying members
• Constrains traffic
• Cars are protected from hail and heat (good for car factories!)
• Makes electricity where it's needed
• Very visible progress toward renewables

France made it mandatory for large malls to install these btw.

Or even better: banning all single story parking lots to have less sealed area. Then putting solar panels above the unsealed area and allowing nature to own everything below the solar panels, instead of agricultural conglomerates who pollute the ground water and produce food for livestock.

Bonus effect is it helps keep customers cars at a cooler temperature

When solar farms are more than like 0.01% of land utilization then maybe its worth caring about.

For the same land you can power a household or get like 14 pounds of beef. who cares.

Just install solar panels where its cheapest, which is going to be an empty field where you can install a ton and get better labor efficiency during the install. Making green energy more expensive to install only benefits fossil fuel companies.

Depends. Are there lots of tall buildings around the parking lot? Solar panels are made of a lot of rare metals and so we have to be very selective about where we install them to maximize energy output. For this region large open spaces near the equator work well. Not that they can't work elsewhere, or couldn't work over a parking lot, but there's a lot of variables that have to be considered on each individual level.

You know what parking lots actually are? Land that investors bought and they're waiting for the housing prices to go even higher before then build another empty residential high-rise over it. No sense putting solar panels on a parking lot that's gonna be gone in a few years.

Yeah, plastering parking lots over prime agricultural land was definitely a mistake. And it's hard to wind that back. We just need to make sure new infrastructure and planning reduces car dependency rather than further entrenching it.

Roofed parking would be pretty sick, compared to having your car baked through in the sun. But multi-story parking decks would be even better, or even just parking lots with trees.

It's not like we're actually short on space to build solar panels on. We already have lots of roofs.

To be honest, i dont think we have large enough parking lots where i live. Only at the airport have i seen pretty large ones and we have 3 of those in my country

Improved wool output on farms with solar panels Edit: Carparks also make great places for solar panels. Especially if they can charge the cars.

Who is gonna tell him that solar panels on roofs exist ☠️☠️☠️

That's already a thing. They're called solar canopies, and they're covering school parking lots in CA.

Might as well. The city has already paved over the prime farm land.

Keeps cars cool, can be used to charge EVs. Yeah, sounds good. Make the parking lot only partly covered and those spaces EV only to encourage the transition.

It also has to be protected from vandals and morons protesting it.

Also, just for laughs, make the support bars too low for modern pickup trucks haha!

You could do it over big roads too.

Could also cover freeways (also reduce glare during your commute)

But parking lots are a good idea too

A few parking lots near us have that and parking there is a treat on hot summer days!

Oddly Costco does this.

Not a bad idea but not sure how they'd handle snowfall.

But only in one case sure the farmer get money without doing anything with his field.

I think the problem might be that our car parks just aren't all that big, and there's other infrastructure that needs to be built to accompany DC grid sources like this, they don't just plug straight in.

There's lots of normal sized car parks dotted all over, very few of them are really of any particular size, and the ones that are are usually multi storey car parks to save on footprint anyway.

This is the world I want