One important detail is lost in translation. This law applies to publicly-funded parking lots. Public parking does not mean any parking lot open to the general public in this case.
South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
131–140 of 229 posts
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Phoenix is uninhabitable precisely because it's entirely optimized for car life from what I heard? (i.e. massively spread out, no walkability, etc)
It's car optimized because the 110F weather makes it un-walkable in the first place. When I lived in a walkable city, I would prefer to walk 30 minutes than drive. When I lived in Phoenix, I did not want to spend more than 30 seconds outside in the summer.
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Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Solar panel produces about 250W peak per square meter. A parking spot can thus produce maybe three kW. A whole parking lot is probably enough for one or two chargers.
People would be unhappy with a charger that only worked slowly and during the day, even if it was free.
They'd also be unhappy with a solar panel that only generated power when a car was plugged in. Fortunately it would still be connected to the grid, resolving both concerns.
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#134Great initiative. However I am curious about the "NO USE FRANCE" text at the end of this article. Is this a licence issue or something? Would love it if someone with insight would be able to comment!
In France solar panel are mandatory over car park.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/09/france-to-requ...
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
A better version for shade and city beautification is to force trees around/within the parking lot.
People always end up petitioning for them to be cutdown because tree litter inevitably falls on cars. The best solution for cars is dense multistory parking.
Dense multistory parking underground.
In South Korea, you usually don't see parking lots the size of several football fields like in the U.S., even around venues that generally attract a lot of cars, even in suburban areas. Instead, there are several stories of parking lots under every large building. Above-ground space is simply too valuable to waste on parking.
Unfortunately, you can't install solar panels underground.
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently was at the Vegas airport, and what struck me was the parking lot. It was the same parking lot I saw many years ago. But this time, instead of feeling sorry for the owners of the cars that were obviously getting cooked up, that whole are was shaded in bajillion solar panels. It seemed like such an obvious win-win for everyone, I expect it to catch on fairly quickly.
But, isn't the albedo of a solar panel farm still way dark? It means the radiation is still being captured rather than reflected back up.
Even if it was just 0 albedo no generation, irradiation on whatever's parked beneath would be cut in half plus rest of (re-)radiation converted into far-ir. This is not unuseful. Just don't mandate this kind of thing in places where parking lots have to be cleaned up with bulldozers in winter.
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#137I really want America to get on board with this. Getting people to not drive is a nearly impossible task given how slow cities move to change the codes, so if we have to have parking lots, put them to use.
I really want the US to get on board with solar in general. Parking lot solar is a good thing generally, but I don't think it should be mandatory because it's an inefficient use of resources. We don't have any shortage of rural land.
Maybe a more flexible policy could be something like: for every parking spot, you must add 1 kw of solar somewhere on your property (whether that's the parking lot or building roof or whatever is up to you) or add 2 kw of solar somewhere within a 20 miles of the site or add 3kw of solar somewhere in the US.
A lot of companies might find that the last option is the cheapest, and if that's the case we should want and encourage them to do that instead.
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#138> Under a new decree approved by President Lee Jae-myung during a Cabinet meeting on March 11, mid-to-large-sized public parking lots with 80 or more spaces must install solar power generation South Korea is going to get a lot of 79-space parking lots.
It sounds like what's meant by "public parking lots" is "government parking lots" https://view.asiae.co.kr/en/article/2025081311085933266
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#139Authoritarian Asian countries being authoritarian as usual. Wouldn't mind putting up panels if I could sell and use the power. But fuck governments telling property "owners" what they can or can't do.
Your options are basically Somalia. Instead of "authoritarian" governments issuing "mandates" you'll get to deal with warlords that will just kill you, take your land, and do whatever you want with it.
Warlord won't kill you, that's just waste of ammo. They'll rob you same as government. There is no distinction really.
Re: South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots
#140It seems inefficient to put solar panels over parking areas as it requires significant amount of structure which costs a lot more than shade it creates is worth. Especially compared to how much less structure is needed on more remote solar farms. Maybe I'm just using American mindset where there is lots of open land that is good for solar generation? Perhaps not true in Korea?
>It seems inefficient to put solar panels over parking areas as it requires significant amount of structure which costs a lot more than shade it creates is worth If you're putting up structures to shade cars from bright sun anyway then it doesn't take a lot of legislative pressure to enforce "the thing you put up has to be solar panels". Not familiar with SK, but in principle this parking shade had better be panels w…
Most people driving around in a big city don't have the luxury of choosing a shaded vs. sunny parking space. So the owner of a parking lot doesn't have any incentive to offer shaded parking... unless said shade generates revenue, which a solar panel does.