Solar energy, how to use parking lots to produce it

Hooking up parked EVs to PV canopies could even help stabilize the electricity grid. Since traditional grids do not store energy, the electricity fed into the system must match the amount consumed: too much energy on the grid is a problem. With solar power, especially during the lightest hours of the day, this can mean shutting down production. But if there was a way to store excess energy inside electric vehicle batteries, the full potential of the energy could be exploited solar energy during peak production times.

“During the day they can store energy – says Nathanson about parked electric vehicles -, and during peak consumption, in the evening, they can return energy to the grid”. Using so many independent batteries in connection with the grid would require one decent amount of automation. Structures would also be needed for the bidirectional chargingwhich are currently not very popular.

Who pays for the installation?

However, however, not all car parks can be transformed into photovoltaic power stations. In some cases there may be too much shade, perhaps due to nearby tall buildings. In countries in the global north, where the sun is lower on the horizon, shadows would be a bigger problem, especially in winter. In other car parks, then, the panels could reflect sunlight onto buildings in the area or worse, on the roads, warns Dylan Ryan, professor of mechanical and energy engineering at Edinburgh’s Napier University.

The thorniest issue, however, is the cost: installing a solar panel above a parking lot costs money several times more than installing one on the ground or on a roof, because the support structure must also be built. One of the questions that remain on France’s proposal it’s how the parking managers will pay for these installations. Without subsidies, Pearce says, it’s hard to expect many operators to install voluntary solar canopies.

Naturally, the parking managers could recoup the initial investment by charging customers who want to recharge electric vehicles, use the energy for other activities or sell it to the grid.

This obviously does not mean that photovoltaic parks should be built exclusively in urban areas. Generating a greater share of solar energy near where people are, however, offers a clear advantage, in addition to the obvious need to find a way to overcome the opposition of people who do not want plants to be built near areas where people are which they live. Installing solar panels in car parks is a way around the problem and, for this reason, the French proposal represents a huge step, and decisive, in the right direction.

This content originally appeared on Wired UK.