South Korea Mandates Solar Panels for Public Parking Lots

The solar covered parking lots near me are great because they also serve as cover for your car when it’s hot and sunny.

It’s not the most cost effective way to install solar, though. A tall structure designed to put the panels high up in the air and leave a lot of space for cars is a lot more expensive than normal rooftop solar or even field setups. This is basically a way to force some of the cost of clean energy as a tax on parking lots. Which may not be a bad thing for dense cities where parking lots have their own externalities on the limited available land.

Some more context as someone living in Korea right now, "cheap" cars in Korea are quite rare, especially in Seoul. Having a car is somewhat of a luxury and not needed for daily life. So I think this is trying to move some of the cost of clean energy towards those who can afford it.

In Phoenix, Arizona, there are solar panels over the parking lots at since of the grocery stores. Makes a huge difference in survivability when you get back to the car.

(Without huge infrastructure dedicated to car welfare, Phoenix is uninhabitable.)

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.

I 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.

> 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.

Next, all surfaces of buildings must have solar panels.

This hotel in India makes money from selling to the grid, in addition to their own electricity use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-AuPpqLO-o

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. 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?

This is kind of a clever Land Use Tax by raising the cost of keeping underdeveloped land as surface lots.

I'd probably be okay with a law that mandated parking lots have almost anything on top, whether parks, panels, buildings, or agriculture.

If you have 80 or more slots, you have to generate at least 100 KW.

As someone who has lived in Korea, this will be great for the apartment complex parking lots.

That said, I don't think it's aggressive enough. Why not scale with the number of parking spaces?

Maybe some WX nerds on HN can answer, but uh... would this help with reducing convection cells that appear above large parking lots? I can look at radarscope during summer and see them roiding up over really large parking lots in my region. Do solar panels help reduce this 'heat island' effect?

This is surely a good thing. The only thing better than this is to build a tall multi purpose structure on that same land AND THEN put solar panels on top of that structure.

Great 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!

I believe solar carports of that size need to be constructed with steel, and South Korea has a significant steel oversupply issue now, so this provides a way to keep the industry going.

This is a great idea, whether full of cars or empty, a lot of heat is absorbed by the parking lots. Just covering them means the concrete below cannot heat up.

This is sane and sensible and honestly all buildings should have some shape of panels on them…

Well, destroying the entirety of the Gulf certainly is one way to make the world go renewable. Many are going to struggle, though

power right where its needed, plus shade for your vehicle. this is the way.

This is the kind of thing that every western ( or “rich” ) government should have mandated years ago.

The best time was years ago, the second best time…

We see the results of initiatives like this in BC, Canada. About 10 years ago they passed a law that when any government building is getting a renovation of any kind, public EV chargers must be built in the parking lot.

The result is that every single town without exception has EV chargers now. The future is coming, despite some doing their best to slow it down.

well it’s certainly better than covering farmland with them like has been happening around here

Solar Freaking Roadways!

sensible take is sensible, more news at 11

Authoritarian 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.