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New South Korean national law will turn large parking lots into solar farms

203 points by thelastgallon 1y ago

pingou 1y ago
We have a similar law in France. Something is unclear to me though: "build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions." Not sure what that means but that doesn't seem right.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  Which part? 12 parking lots 657 kW nameplate capacity 1.23 GWh per year of energy production The 185,000 cubicles worth of CO2 emissions is likely based on average pollution per car, and average carbon intensity of the local grid.
  - pingou 1y ago
    The average emissions for a car is 4.6 tons of co2. The average carbon intensity of U.S. electricity generation is around 384 grams of co2 per kWh. 1230000 * 0.384 / 1000 = 472 tons. But 185000 cars emit 851000 tons so 500 tons is like a rounding error, unless I am mistaken.
    - hinkley 1y ago
      Either it’s a full on hallucination or they intend the power to be used to charge electric vehicles. Which is a stretch because solar parking isn’t going to sell that many electric vehicles. It will sell some, but not that many more.
      - Dylan16807 1y ago
        1.23GWh is enough to power a few hundred cars, not 185 thousand.
    - _aavaa_ 1y ago
      Yeah the longer I look at it the less their numbers make sense. I also did a double take, “surely it’s not 4.6 tonnes per year”. But it is. If that came out as a liquid rather than a gas, we’d have stopped burning fossil fuels by now.
- thelastgallon 1y ago
  The complete sentence for context: "Here in the US, we’re proving that out, too – the Northwest Fire District in Arizona partnered with Standard Solar to build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions."
- imoverclocked 1y ago
  I have to wonder if they are taking into account the AC usage or other factors to get there; When you park in the shade, you don't have to cool your car down nearly as much. This effect is greater in hot deserts with lots of sun. There are likely other benefits to the vehicles and infrastructure.
jandrese 1y ago
Generally the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions are low volume niche products that cost way more than traditional ground mounts. My biggest hope is that this policy creates a marketplace with actual competition that comes up with more cost efficient mounting solutions that make it practical worldwide. Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands that take up way too much space. While adding solar on them doesn't solve the last issue, it does help mitigate the heat island effect and solar panels are no less ugly than asphalt. Plus it is power creation right next to where it is being consumed for minimal transfer losses. It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade.
- csdreamer7 1y ago
  > It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade. Pedestrians too.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    I love the idea but execution will determine if this is better for pedestrians. Poorly executed parking solar could reduce sightlines and escape routes by crowding ground level. Hopefully this will be the sort of thing where we try different strategies quickly and pick winners and losers. India has done a lot of work with covering irrigation canals with solar, and in some ways that’s a simpler problem so it makes sense that this is happening now instead of earlier. Big successful systems start as small successful ones. Maybe there is some substantial knowledge transfer that can occur there.
    - Arrath 1y ago
      >Poorly executed parking solar could reduce sightlines and escape routes by crowding ground level There's certainly no need for the support superstructure to need more pillars and members than your typical multi deck parking structure and while yes some have bad sightlines a majority are totally fine.
  - Scoundreller 1y ago
thelastgallon 1y ago
This is not a bad idea. EVs can charge during the day, go home fully charged, connect to the grid and supply power to the grid. EV batteries are humongous and a large number of them will become an energy reservoir. All excess production during the day (which is being curtailed now) can be stored in Evs and reused later throughout the day. The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  > The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying. How would this work? Who is then paying for the solar?
  - thelastgallon 1y ago
    The utility. The utility operates a 24/7 electricity marketplace that perfectly matches supply and demand. Supply must follow demand. If demand decreases, pricing becomes negative until supply decreases. This is problematic because we aren't utilizing all the excess energy generated by solar and wind. Which is all free. Wholesale prices went negative about 200 million times: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-renewable-energy-sends-us-power-prices-below-zero https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-r... (https://archive.is/nFsOk https://archive.is/nFsOk) Regional clusters emerged, for example, in the Permian Basin in western Texas, and in Kansas and western Oklahoma in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), negative prices accounted for more than 25% of all hours. Negative electricity prices result either from local congestion of the transmission system leading supply to exceed demand locally or due to system-wide oversupply. :https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/plentiful-electricity-turns-wholesale https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/plentiful-electricity-turns... Edit: This is called curtailment. It is now ~20% and increasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity)
    - lostlogin 1y ago
jansan 1y ago
A quick reminder that South Korea is closer to the equator than Spain or Greece.
- metabagel 1y ago
  And South Korea is at about the same latitude as Tennessee and North Carolina.
  - jansan 1y ago
    I will never stop to amaze me how far to the south the USA is compared to Europe on average. I live near Berlin and even most Canadians live further to the south than me.
    - scotty79 1y ago
      Europe is uniquely hot for how far North it is. It's due to Gulf Stream and we might lose it at some point as the climate change progresses.
      - laurencerowe 1y ago
        The West coast is much more similar though. Paris is at a latitude between Seattle and Vancouver while San Francisco is a little south of Lisbon. Both have pretty comparable climates.
    - jldugger 1y ago
      In contrast, it will never amaze me how far north Europe is. Canada weather is cold and yet y'all live even further north!
      - dredmorbius 1y ago
        Gulf Stream. AMOC collapse will be brutal. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...>
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
gnarlouse 1y ago
It floors me that the whole world is pretty content saying “okay cool solar/wind/renewables” and then theres the uneducated states of america who is rejecting all of it
- cmrdporcupine 1y ago
  Don't worry, the US is actively trying to export that rejection, too, so it won't be alone. See Trump's messed up rant at the UN, and the policies and proposals of his conservative allies here in Canada. Alberta was the the fastest growing renewable producer in Canada due to high winds and long solar days and low cloud cover. The provincial government in the pocket of the oil industry banned renewable developments for months under the excuse that it was "destroying farmland" and then came back months later with a policy that hamstringed future development. to these people, renewables are a threat because they can't be a parasite off it.
  - boothby 1y ago
    The astonishing thing to me is that the production of solar panels is a huge source of mining and manufacturing jobs. Just like heat pumps. If we were serious about the objectives stated by the conservatives, Canada could easily be a world leader with Alberta and Saskatchewan profiting handsomely.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Very unlikely to be able to compete with China at scale however - especially since China is already at huge scale.
      - boothby 1y ago
        As always, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And if we take Conservative talking points in good faith, proctective trade policies buttress the economy in the long term. Right? But I think you're wrong about the extractive side -- Canada has huge rare earth reserves, and while tapping into them does require an investment of time and effort, there's no reason we couldn't compete with China there. And don't even get me started on how unattractive Canadian oil is on the international market. The same "can't compete with China" flavor of argument should apply just as well there if it makes any real sense.
jopsen 1y ago
Their new law requires parking lots with more than 80 spaces to have solar panels. Great idea, where I live I'm pretty much maxing out the percentage of permitted structures allowed by zoning. I could imagine that if solar panel carports didn't count towards structure limits, I'd build a carport across my absurdly large driveway :) I think there are lots of "free" ways we could incentivize private construction of solar panels -- even without monetary subsidies. Or we could even tax people for not doing it. In Denmark your land is taxed based on what it's zoned for, and how it could be utilized (not how it is utilized).
- FooBarWidget 1y ago
  I hope this doesn't result in new parking lots to "coincidentally" only have 79 parking lots.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    Some of us wouldn’t minds so much. That puts a cap on how car focused commercial real estate can be.
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    Depends on country, some have fixed ratios based on occupancy or square footage of shopping area. Which they could shrink, but it would raise the final price per square foot (land price stays the same and most construction costs don’t get that much smaller if you shave off a few hundred sqft).
- hinkley 1y ago
  I think I would like it if it better if it were an either or. Either solar panels, or rain gardens, or permeable pavement, or canopy, or some combination. But then again that might make loopholes that make my head spin. Might have to leave the higher rung up to organizations like LEED and leave the minimums as one or maybe two choices. Maybe make the other harder than solar unless you have a weird situation where say adding trees is simpler than running power distribution, like across the street from the shop.
Havoc 1y ago
This happened pretty organically in south africa, especially on malls. * Prevents being affected by grid blackouts * Seen as progressive / eco by customers and ofc shade * You've got captive demand - air-conditioning giant mall & food shops need industrial fridges * Enough scale to do meaningful grid feed in * Already have the infra to do generator switch over * Access to financing and ability to plan over the 10 years or so that it takes to recover cost
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
  I recall malls in the Gauteng area sometimes having netting or shade cloth over car parking bays. As a way to prevent hail damage to cars that can occur occasionally but unpredictably. Leaving your car out under the sky for hours was a risk. I wonder how well the solar panels will stand up to hail. Some parts of the interior of the USA will have very similar hail considerations.
  - Havoc 1y ago
    Was wondering about it too but seems like it’s either not an issue or they’re using panels resistant to it. I have noticed though that they never seem to put them in flat. Always in quite an angle that doesn’t seem sun direction motivated. Usually v shape with car under each side of the v. Maybe thats for hail or possible to help rain clean it.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    Here's a recent article on the sub-industries that insure PV against hail, and predict and protect from hail: https://reneweconomy.com.au/as-giant-hailstones-hit-the-sunshine-state-solar-industry-looks-to-new-tech-to-protect-against-wild-storms/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/as-giant-hailstones-hit-the-suns... Apparently in Australia climate change is making the hail bigger and more frequent. You can't move the car protecting ones generally so it just comes down to making them tough and knowing your local weather, plus insurance. Maybe the car insurance companies will cut you a check if you take the hit for them?
rurp 1y ago
I wish the IRA infrastructure bill from a few years ago had included something like this. Not the total mandate, but these should be subsidized and encouraged. These installations actually improve an area and have multiple benefits. Instead the US bill incentivizes detroying large swaths of wild land which is unfortunate.
youknowone 1y ago
The article is a bit misleading. The new law requires the installation of solar panels in all *public* parking lots operated by the government. I checked this through local news sources. In South Korea, there are already incentives to install solar panels on buildings, including parking lots. If you operate a solar power system with a capacity of over 20 kW, you can sell the generated electricity at prices higher than the market rate thanks to government support programs. Despite these benefits, many parking lots in South Korea still do not install solar panels. This is mainly because, given the country’s high population density, most parking lots are located on land that is considered potential development sites. Once solar panels are installed, it becomes more difficult to change the land use later for development purposes, and the owners would also have to bear additional costs for removing the panels.

203 points by thelastgallon 1y ago

We have a similar law in France. Something is unclear to me though: "build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions." Not sure what that means but that doesn't seem right.

_aavaa_ 1y ago
Which part? 12 parking lots 657 kW nameplate capacity 1.23 GWh per year of energy production The 185,000 cubicles worth of CO2 emissions is likely based on average pollution per car, and average carbon intensity of the local grid.
- pingou 1y ago
  The average emissions for a car is 4.6 tons of co2. The average carbon intensity of U.S. electricity generation is around 384 grams of co2 per kWh. 1230000 * 0.384 / 1000 = 472 tons. But 185000 cars emit 851000 tons so 500 tons is like a rounding error, unless I am mistaken.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    Either it’s a full on hallucination or they intend the power to be used to charge electric vehicles. Which is a stretch because solar parking isn’t going to sell that many electric vehicles. It will sell some, but not that many more.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      1.23GWh is enough to power a few hundred cars, not 185 thousand.
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    Yeah the longer I look at it the less their numbers make sense. I also did a double take, “surely it’s not 4.6 tonnes per year”. But it is. If that came out as a liquid rather than a gas, we’d have stopped burning fossil fuels by now.
thelastgallon 1y ago
The complete sentence for context: "Here in the US, we’re proving that out, too – the Northwest Fire District in Arizona partnered with Standard Solar to build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions."
imoverclocked 1y ago
I have to wonder if they are taking into account the AC usage or other factors to get there; When you park in the shade, you don't have to cool your car down nearly as much. This effect is greater in hot deserts with lots of sun. There are likely other benefits to the vehicles and infrastructure.

jandrese 1y ago

Generally the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions are low volume niche products that cost way more than traditional ground mounts. My biggest hope is that this policy creates a marketplace with actual competition that comes up with more cost efficient mounting solutions that make it practical worldwide. Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands that take up way too much space. While adding solar on them doesn't solve the last issue, it does help mitigate the heat island effect and solar panels are no less ugly than asphalt. Plus it is power creation right next to where it is being consumed for minimal transfer losses. It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade.

csdreamer7 1y ago
> It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade. Pedestrians too.
- hinkley 1y ago
  I love the idea but execution will determine if this is better for pedestrians. Poorly executed parking solar could reduce sightlines and escape routes by crowding ground level. Hopefully this will be the sort of thing where we try different strategies quickly and pick winners and losers. India has done a lot of work with covering irrigation canals with solar, and in some ways that’s a simpler problem so it makes sense that this is happening now instead of earlier. Big successful systems start as small successful ones. Maybe there is some substantial knowledge transfer that can occur there.
  - Arrath 1y ago
    >Poorly executed parking solar could reduce sightlines and escape routes by crowding ground level There's certainly no need for the support superstructure to need more pillars and members than your typical multi deck parking structure and while yes some have bad sightlines a majority are totally fine.
- Scoundreller 1y ago

thelastgallon 1y ago

This is not a bad idea. EVs can charge during the day, go home fully charged, connect to the grid and supply power to the grid. EV batteries are humongous and a large number of them will become an energy reservoir. All excess production during the day (which is being curtailed now) can be stored in Evs and reused later throughout the day. The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying.

lostlogin 1y ago
> The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying. How would this work? Who is then paying for the solar?
- thelastgallon 1y ago
  The utility. The utility operates a 24/7 electricity marketplace that perfectly matches supply and demand. Supply must follow demand. If demand decreases, pricing becomes negative until supply decreases. This is problematic because we aren't utilizing all the excess energy generated by solar and wind. Which is all free. Wholesale prices went negative about 200 million times: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-renewable-energy-sends-us-power-prices-below-zero https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-r... (https://archive.is/nFsOk https://archive.is/nFsOk) Regional clusters emerged, for example, in the Permian Basin in western Texas, and in Kansas and western Oklahoma in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), negative prices accounted for more than 25% of all hours. Negative electricity prices result either from local congestion of the transmission system leading supply to exceed demand locally or due to system-wide oversupply. :https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/plentiful-electricity-turns-wholesale https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/plentiful-electricity-turns... Edit: This is called curtailment. It is now ~20% and increasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity)
  - lostlogin 1y ago

jansan 1y ago

A quick reminder that South Korea is closer to the equator than Spain or Greece.

metabagel 1y ago
And South Korea is at about the same latitude as Tennessee and North Carolina.
- jansan 1y ago
  I will never stop to amaze me how far to the south the USA is compared to Europe on average. I live near Berlin and even most Canadians live further to the south than me.
  - scotty79 1y ago
    Europe is uniquely hot for how far North it is. It's due to Gulf Stream and we might lose it at some point as the climate change progresses.
    - laurencerowe 1y ago
      The West coast is much more similar though. Paris is at a latitude between Seattle and Vancouver while San Francisco is a little south of Lisbon. Both have pretty comparable climates.
  - jldugger 1y ago
    In contrast, it will never amaze me how far north Europe is. Canada weather is cold and yet y'all live even further north!
    - dredmorbius 1y ago
      Gulf Stream. AMOC collapse will be brutal. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...>

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

gnarlouse 1y ago

It floors me that the whole world is pretty content saying “okay cool solar/wind/renewables” and then theres the uneducated states of america who is rejecting all of it

cmrdporcupine 1y ago
Don't worry, the US is actively trying to export that rejection, too, so it won't be alone. See Trump's messed up rant at the UN, and the policies and proposals of his conservative allies here in Canada. Alberta was the the fastest growing renewable producer in Canada due to high winds and long solar days and low cloud cover. The provincial government in the pocket of the oil industry banned renewable developments for months under the excuse that it was "destroying farmland" and then came back months later with a policy that hamstringed future development. to these people, renewables are a threat because they can't be a parasite off it.
- boothby 1y ago
  The astonishing thing to me is that the production of solar panels is a huge source of mining and manufacturing jobs. Just like heat pumps. If we were serious about the objectives stated by the conservatives, Canada could easily be a world leader with Alberta and Saskatchewan profiting handsomely.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Very unlikely to be able to compete with China at scale however - especially since China is already at huge scale.
    - boothby 1y ago
      As always, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And if we take Conservative talking points in good faith, proctective trade policies buttress the economy in the long term. Right? But I think you're wrong about the extractive side -- Canada has huge rare earth reserves, and while tapping into them does require an investment of time and effort, there's no reason we couldn't compete with China there. And don't even get me started on how unattractive Canadian oil is on the international market. The same "can't compete with China" flavor of argument should apply just as well there if it makes any real sense.

jopsen 1y ago

Their new law requires parking lots with more than 80 spaces to have solar panels. Great idea, where I live I'm pretty much maxing out the percentage of permitted structures allowed by zoning. I could imagine that if solar panel carports didn't count towards structure limits, I'd build a carport across my absurdly large driveway :) I think there are lots of "free" ways we could incentivize private construction of solar panels -- even without monetary subsidies. Or we could even tax people for not doing it. In Denmark your land is taxed based on what it's zoned for, and how it could be utilized (not how it is utilized).

FooBarWidget 1y ago
I hope this doesn't result in new parking lots to "coincidentally" only have 79 parking lots.
- hinkley 1y ago
  Some of us wouldn’t minds so much. That puts a cap on how car focused commercial real estate can be.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  Depends on country, some have fixed ratios based on occupancy or square footage of shopping area. Which they could shrink, but it would raise the final price per square foot (land price stays the same and most construction costs don’t get that much smaller if you shave off a few hundred sqft).
hinkley 1y ago
I think I would like it if it better if it were an either or. Either solar panels, or rain gardens, or permeable pavement, or canopy, or some combination. But then again that might make loopholes that make my head spin. Might have to leave the higher rung up to organizations like LEED and leave the minimums as one or maybe two choices. Maybe make the other harder than solar unless you have a weird situation where say adding trees is simpler than running power distribution, like across the street from the shop.

Havoc 1y ago

This happened pretty organically in south africa, especially on malls. * Prevents being affected by grid blackouts * Seen as progressive / eco by customers and ofc shade * You've got captive demand - air-conditioning giant mall & food shops need industrial fridges * Enough scale to do meaningful grid feed in * Already have the infra to do generator switch over * Access to financing and ability to plan over the 10 years or so that it takes to recover cost

SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
I recall malls in the Gauteng area sometimes having netting or shade cloth over car parking bays. As a way to prevent hail damage to cars that can occur occasionally but unpredictably. Leaving your car out under the sky for hours was a risk. I wonder how well the solar panels will stand up to hail. Some parts of the interior of the USA will have very similar hail considerations.
- Havoc 1y ago
  Was wondering about it too but seems like it’s either not an issue or they’re using panels resistant to it. I have noticed though that they never seem to put them in flat. Always in quite an angle that doesn’t seem sun direction motivated. Usually v shape with car under each side of the v. Maybe thats for hail or possible to help rain clean it.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  Here's a recent article on the sub-industries that insure PV against hail, and predict and protect from hail: https://reneweconomy.com.au/as-giant-hailstones-hit-the-sunshine-state-solar-industry-looks-to-new-tech-to-protect-against-wild-storms/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/as-giant-hailstones-hit-the-suns... Apparently in Australia climate change is making the hail bigger and more frequent. You can't move the car protecting ones generally so it just comes down to making them tough and knowing your local weather, plus insurance. Maybe the car insurance companies will cut you a check if you take the hit for them?

rurp 1y ago

I wish the IRA infrastructure bill from a few years ago had included something like this. Not the total mandate, but these should be subsidized and encouraged. These installations actually improve an area and have multiple benefits. Instead the US bill incentivizes detroying large swaths of wild land which is unfortunate.

youknowone 1y ago

The article is a bit misleading. The new law requires the installation of solar panels in all *public* parking lots operated by the government. I checked this through local news sources. In South Korea, there are already incentives to install solar panels on buildings, including parking lots. If you operate a solar power system with a capacity of over 20 kW, you can sell the generated electricity at prices higher than the market rate thanks to government support programs. Despite these benefits, many parking lots in South Korea still do not install solar panels. This is mainly because, given the country’s high population density, most parking lots are located on land that is considered potential development sites. Once solar panels are installed, it becomes more difficult to change the land use later for development purposes, and the owners would also have to bear additional costs for removing the panels.