Nope - trenching through a concrete or blacktop parking lot is much more work than running conduit on undeveloped land. Also, you’ve got to shut down your parking lot for a few weeks to do the work.
It makes sense to do when building a new parking lot, in fact I see that kinda frequently these days, but retrofitting one seems like a lot of work
* edited out reference to surviving hurricane. Can't recall exact year this went up.
that is true, but on the flipside you can avoid a lot of the trenching by putting the conduits in the structure of the canopy. The other important thing to note is that large buildings tend to have large substations near by, so the actual amount of trenching required is a lot less.
However it does require a lump of capital to do, and it only makes sense really for the corporation that owns the land to do it.
Would you have to shut down the whole parking lot for roof work?
It's anecdotal, but most parking lots I've seen around LA seemed to have an open top floor which was mostly empty since people presumably prefer their cars to be shaded. I know I specifically didn't want to leave my motorbike on the top floor for this specific reason.
So adding solar panels, which would add shape, would basically increase the parking lot floor.
That would more commonly be called a parking garage or structure, a parking lot as referred to in the article is just an open, paved area of ground. I suspect the construction issues for the top floor of a parking structure are different from those of ground-level installation with no existing vertical structure. Also, by their very nature, parking garages most likely have significantly less square footage on the top floor than a parking lot for the same number of vehicles.
If America had this kind of attitude during world war two it never would have supplied the world with the machines needed to win the war.
Not only is this easier than previous mobilization against existential threats but we have better technologies for communicating and computing than ever before.
If the logistical problem of coordinating underpaid illegal undocumented workers to shift between the walmart parking lot and home depot parking lot with surplus workers going and banging out a few McDonald's and Denny's restaurants is too much I gotta say we're fucked man.
They can do one or two rows at a time without blocking use of the rest of the lot, and without stopping and starting.
Labor is most commonly a tiny fraction of the cost of a solar installation, home rooftop excepted.
You are much better off doing an entire parking lot at once, or maybe half at a time, than you are doing multiple sections, as that work isn't all done be the same people.
Construction is mainly making post holes and placing and truing posts, and pouring concrete. Concrete can be poured at day's end. Electricals can go in last, after framing for the whole lot is up, also a row or two at a time. Wiring does not need to be trenched; it is out of the weather at the ceiling, and more accessible for service.
It is always easy to think of a dumb way to do anything. Admittedly, some people habitually stop there. Some contractors, even.
Here's a point that worries me slightly. With climate change comes more turbulent weather, and increased winds everywhere. Surely the first casualties of a gale or hurricane are panels. The bigger the area, the more vulnerable the installation.
Nice concern troll.
That's a little rude and uncalled for isn't it?
Whether uncalled-for or not depends on your intent. Only you are in a position to know for sure. My own feeling was that the comment was mostly deserved.
Objections and problems raised against proposed solutions to critical issues, just left for someone else to solve feels disingenuous. Whether not it actually is.
Maybe, next time try to solve your own objections and we won't get the drama.
Is the cynicism concern trolling? I'm not sure. Certainly there are people "with agendas" that would toss cynical remarks into a discussion thread like they were thought-grenades.
But the more erudite leanings of HN also attracts a kind of skepticism from people who want to post as naysayers because it suggests they have already perceived the issue, saw its failings, and have moved on ... intellectually.
I hate to even post the above because I'm pointing too many fingers and don't wish to put anyone on the defensive. (There are other reasons I am sure someone would post a contrarian comment.) I wanted to explain though why I don't immediately jump to "concern troll" when I see a negative comment put forth on a story about a very progressive idea.
Actually, windmills.
Seriously, I asked my electrical inspector why there are so few domestic-y scale windmills in my part of New Mexico, where for several months a year we have raging wind every day. "Nobody builds one that can last more than a year or so out here".
The panels, on the other hand, are just fine.
1) fixed-tilt, seasonally-adjustable, flat-panel PV
2) single-axis-tracking, flat-panel PV
3) dual-axis-tracking, concentrator photovoltaics
What is adjusted for the season? The angle of the panels? I would imagine that one would have to be very close to the equator for this to be worthwhile.
Tilting for summer achieves maybe 70% of the power of an automated tracker. In the winter it’s much closer. I suspect in snowy places that the extra weight could overload the automated mechanism. In winter, tracking and fixed achieve nearly the same.
If you were retilting for summer at 25 degrees latitude, you’d tilt slightly away from the equator.
Overall, as PV panel prices continue to trend downwards, we'll see less big installation in sunny places (which originally were the only ones that made financial sense) to more, smaller installs as other costs come to dominate the equations.