It can be really good to cover the fields!

Reduce evaporation, expand the range of plants that can grow and provide subsidies for hard pressed farmers

Protecting food and water resources are going to get increasingly important over the next few decades

I don't know. Sheep like to park below panels too.

Saw a documentation a few days ago. It was about a berry Farmer who put solarpanels above his berries to shield them from direct sunlight. Works great! And He could replace all his transporters with EVs. :)

How about we don't cover our fields with car parks?

It's called Agrovoltaics and it works pretty damn good,if you do it right.

The pairing can also offer some synergies. Solar panels can help moderate ground temperatures, provide shelter for livestock and help plants retain moisture.[6] For farmers the ability to produce electricity can help diversify their income stream.

Solar panels block light, which means that dual use systems involve trade-offs between crop yield, crop quality, and energy production.[7] Some crops/livestock benefit from the increased shade, obviating the trade-off,[8] such as green leafy vegetables, and spices such as turmeric and ginger, whereas staple crops such as wheat, rice, soybeans or pulses require more sun.[9] Agrivoltaics has also been used at scale in arid and semi-arid regions to stabilize soils, reduce dust storm intensity, increase vegetation cover, provide forage for livestock, and curb desertification, notably in northern China.[10][11]

Here's the largest solar farm in California. It covers sand. Also, solar panels don't block 100% of the light getting to the ground, so different species of plants and animals can live and thrive under them. The land under solar panels is not lost to natural use. Life will adapt.

That said, solar panels over car parks is also a good idea. Both things can be true.

Pv is around 250-400 times more efficient than energy crops for Bioethanol. So 1ha of pv could free up 249 - to 399 ha of land. Thats an ultimate win!

Stop sharing this bullshit. It is a stupendously simplistic view that is propagated by those wanting to get in the way of cheap renewables.

Yes, it makes sense in some cases to cover parking lots, but it increases the price and complexity many folds and the areas needed in open land are next to nothing compared to the area being used to grow energy crops today.

The meme should be “stop covering our land with fertilized, pesticide covered corn and rapeseed that go into combustion engines, cover it with solar instead”

both. both is good.

Actually, with climate change in the back of the mind, covering fields with solar panels (not 100%, only partially) will reduce heat damage and water usage in the height of summer, and also protect the ground during cold spells of winter. So it is not that stupid after all.

That covering car parks with solar is a good idea is completely independent of this.

How many times is this gonna get posted? It gets dunked on every time too...

It's not a bad idea to have energy production near where the energy is being used.

That said, it's not an either or.

Technology Connections actually did a great video on why using solar panels in place of crops can benefit the crops and actually provides more energy than the crops themselves. At least in the U.S., a huge portion of our crops are used for ethanol in gasoline anyway.

This is emotionally resonant but it's actually sometimes better to cover fields. The right thing is not always intuitive.

Both. Agriphotovoltaik is neat stuff, proctects the more sensitive plants and enables farmers to generate more income, making them less depending on subsidies, bad crops, etc.

I'll do you one better

Replace most city car infrastructure by bicycle infrastructure. The few remaining required car parks? Move those underground under buildings and parks. Then those places that used to be car parks, make those actual parks to walk and sometimes cycle in

Then move solar on top of building roofs

The foundations used to support both pictures are the same: W6x9 or W6x10.4 W-beams.

Carports are more expensive, though, because those foundations need to be just as long as the ground-mount ones + 14' to support the panels above parking spaces. And often, ground-mounts can use alternative foundations like helical piles or ground screws which don't need to be embedded as deep as W-beams. This shaves down foundation costs.

Then, you have to consider the steel trusses needed to distribute complex carports loads, which are simplified or non-existent with ground-mounts.

Then, you often have concrete encasements around carport foundations to protect the foundations from vehicles collisions.

All of this contributes to carport solar PV being the MOST expensive out of any alternative.

And if anyone is curious, for Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar in urban/suburban contexts, cost effective PV usually goes roof-mount < ground-mount < canopy-mount. For utility/DG-scale, ground-mount is king.

Because it's not necessarily correct. There's so many fields dedicated to growing energy plants that covering just a part of those would be sufficient to electrify the entire transport sector. That's just fields for plants for Biofuels etc., not a single beautiful picturesque meadow, not a single field that grows food.

Of course covering car parks is a good idea too, but it's more expensive, and it's a climate change denier's strawman that covering fields would supposedly endanger our food supply or ruin our landscapes.

Given that :

A : agriphotovoltaism, can drive up most field yields because loads of places are now too dry and too hot in the summer. Solar panels block the excess sun and keep the moisture in the ground. Conversely, you can't park more cars under solar panels.

B : your average field is much larger than a car park. So installing a solar power plant is more efficient in a field (less paperwork per square meter, spend more time building than moving material around...).

C : car parks are often surrounded by buildings which will block the sun. This doesn't happen on most fields (which rarely have tall trees)

D : a car raming into your poles is bound to happen and you pretty much have to replace the whole pole. A cow ramming into your pole might happen, the pole won't give a fuck.

E : installing solar panels above car park is a lot more expensive (taller infrastructure, need more space between poles so need chonkier poles, maintenance high up is way more costly, etc ) And solar panel companies usually work on a much tighter budget than say the petrol industry for exemple. So every dollar counts

Anyway, next time please do some research instead of posting a divisive post and spreading misconception ;)

Edit : as some others pointed out :

• destroying natural environments in order to put up solar panels is not okay. Which i totally agree with. That's why I was talking of agriphotovoltaism specifically.
• if we get the opportunity, we might as well put up solar panels in both fields and cities. We shouldn't paint it as an either/or situation because it risks dividing the pro solar population and i don't need to explain why this is a bad idea

Um, they do? Half the retail stores in my area have solar panels in the parking lot.

Cover the car parks, make private cars obsolete, turn car parks into fields

It's SO sunny here that I'd probably get better results in my garden by shading it under solar panels, there are plenty of places they help ag, not harm it. You don't have to space them so tightly or have them completely flat like that picture.

Also warehouses. Also houses. Also literally any structure that already exists that isn't nature. If it is an energy consuming building, it should have solar panels on it. Parking lots count because cars are energy consuming devices.

If any of the billionaires actually cared about the planet or the human race, they would just dump money at a huge loss into making solar panels cost pennies.

I want solar panel Venetian blinds on my windows. The entire exterior of my car should be solar panels. Every roof everywhere should be solar panels.

I want the to see so much money poured into it that for $35 I could get a t-shirt with a USBC port that charges my fucking phone when I'm out in the sun.

But that doesnt make money. I guess the lives of a few hundred assholes is more important than making some super awesome shit that benefits everybody.

I fucking hate this time line.