11/27/2023 0 Comments Solar roofs would power planetThe new legislation is aimed at large car parks, especially near highways and major routes. The legislation specifies that larger car parks must have at least half of the property covered in solar panels.ĮcoWatch adds that many car parks in France are already equipped with solar panels, including the ongoing development of a 17 megawatt installation that will cover over 11,200 parking spots for Disneyland Paris. Parking lots for heavy goods vehicles weighing over 7.5 metric tons may not be required to install the solar panels and solar panel installation that “cannot be met under economically acceptable conditions” could also be exempt, according to Engadget. Parking lots that have architectural, environmental, heritage, or other proven restraints, and car parks that have at least half of the property shaded by trees may be exempt. “We must not delay the implementation of the decarbonization of our economy,” Senator Agnès Pannier-Runacher said during the Senate debate on the legislation, Forbes reports. For a parking lot with 80 spaces, the fine could amount to 48,000 euros per year. Failure to comply in time will result in a fine of 50 euros per parking spot per month. Lots with more than 400 spaces will need to comply within three years. Parking lot owners will have 5 years to comply starting from July 1, 2023. When complete, it is estimated all those solar roofs will provide an estimate 11 MW of electricity - equivalent to the output of 10 conventional nuclear power plants. This has the rather splendid, if accidental, effect of making cheap renewable electricity available to any electric cars parked below.īut here’s the kicker. Last week, as part of the scramble going on all across Europe to replace cheap natural gas supplies from Russia with renewable energy, the French Senate approved new legislation that requires all car parks with space for more than 80 cars to cover those spaces with solar roofs. When you run all the numbers, there can be significant economic advantages to producing solar power close to where it will be consumed. Yes, it is cheaper to build huge solar farms on enormous tracts of open land, but then there are the costs of connecting those solar farms to the grid and distributing it to where it is needed. The notion of distributed renewables is just starting to gain currency at the highest levels. But things are changing, partly because it is getting harder to find places to erect solar farms due to “not in my backyard” concerns and partly because people are slowly beginning to recognize that the best way to put solar power to work it to make it as close as possible to where it will be used. Until recently, “solar roofs” was a term that applied primarily to private residences or small commercial buildings.
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