What would be better to cover parking lots, trees or solar panels?

OH, we can't do solar panels! Do you realize it would take the equivilent square footage of (name your size!!! Arizona California whatever) covered with solar panels!


How many square miles of parking lots are there. At the rate you pay for big city parking, the lot owner could leverage his realestate asset even further. Parking lots are already a license to print money!

Trees are a great idea, but since so much area is paved they suffer from lack of (natural) water, as well as from over heat from all the paving.

I have been squawking about ideas like this for years! Not only could you sell to the grid, but pretty simple to use for charging stations for electric and plug in hybrids.

Spread the word.

 

Lets fund the future rusted eye sore broke down unnatural solar panels with anything that doesn't resemble taxpayer subsidies.

Actually it should be funded with the electrical fund savings that the parking lot owner doesn't have to pay. Meaning the parking lot owner pays for the panels since he gets the solar panel output.

Money is always an issue, so that thought is rendered moot

I do agree with some trees, non-sap producing trees.

Trees would be nice from an aesthetic point of view and also nice to sit your car under the shade of one but...
to plant trees, for every spot, with real leaves that fall down in autumn, swirl all over and into your car when opening the door, collect up under cars and in corners(making the parking lot a nightmare to clean), needing water, disease spraying, cutting limbs and branches...etc...etc...

It seems for every car to park under a tree would be maintenance intensive and costly. A few shaded parking spots under a tree seems to be the current idea. (Let the other cars fry.)

ZC1

 

Kyocera in San Diego, CA already has installed solar over their parking lots. It's called a "Solar Grove". There are plenty of places to plant trees...like the medians and sidewalk easements. I think the Solar Grove Parking lots are the way to go as eventually....we'll be plugging our cars in to charge up while parked. Think of the malls and grocery store parking lots that could attract plug in cars by offering a free recharge while shopping.

 

My answer.



No bird poop on the car when you come back either. And you KNOW where your charge came from.

 

And think a bit further about the shoppers who just spent an hour or two in the stores, put their goods in the car and hop in, only to find their particular charging outlet didn't work properly so they really can't make it back home.

ZC1

 

Replies like this just stagger me. If you wish and hope really hard, then maybe... just maybe EVs will suck and we can maintain the nirvana of our gas-burning culture. I've been driving electric for coming on eight years and about 90,000 miles now. Want to guess how many times your bit of "thinking" has happened to me? The answer is none. Yes, it could happen. Just like it could happen that somebody opens your gas tank and flips a lit cigarette down the hole. Man, have you ever thought of that!? That would ruin your whole day, and might delay your return home. Or, a big chunk of sky could fall on you. Eeek.

Yup. It makes enough power each day to charge any vehicle that could be plugged into any of the six chargers, for however long it is there. It is a Park and Ride lot. More here:
Vacaville Dedication

 

Why not a mix?
Solar lighting throughout the car park

and deciduous trees planted to provide COOL shade in summer.
Of course there needs to be a mechanism in place to cope with the masses of fallen leaves each autumn but the cooling affect of trees in summer, the automatic open sky in winter and the low cost of installation make trees very attractive, not to mention trees are more attractive.


Put the solar panels on the roof of the buildings rather than as artificial trees.

If you think the solar array above would eliminate bird poo you have never seen a swallows nest on the frame of this type of structure.

 

Like you go there on empty for a fill up? Get real. It's a free boost but no one would rely on it for a full charge. If I owned an EV I'd charge mine at home overnight. But I'd appreciate being able to do some free charging while I shopped.

 

You made an assumption that's not warranted from the statement I made.
Little do you know, I do want EV's to succeed, but I'm a bit realistic about what WILL happen and YOU or anybody else won't be Johnny on the spot to fix the problem.

So Darrell, aside from taking this personally, are you suggesting that a parking structure recharging spot that will not properly charge has the same chance of happening as someone opening your gas tank and flipping a cigarette down the hole?
You made the relationship.

Diatribe.

Would it be fair to say that the charging spots you use are highly maintained and intently looked after?
Is it further fair to say this lot is seen as a poster child for EV public charging?
To your knowledge did any university sit in, help plan or execute this project?

I'd also like to know how much of the 1.7 million went towards the entire infrastruture of Solar recharging.

I think, by now, the scenario I mentioned of normal supermarket (or not) parking lots with defective or ill maintained charging stations will NOT be anywhere near as distant as DarrellDD would hope.

By the way of progress, I'm using 6ft high x 4ft wide (4 of each) Solar air panels on my home to heat my water tank upstairs which feeds a downstairs water tank and a computerized control unit to manage water temp and provide winter hot air and hot water since 1986.
On a sunny day in winter, the solar panels can heat the air to around 225-250 degrees and when the solar unit fans are ON, the house rooms have reached 90+ degrees in the dead of winter, causing me to open all doors and shut the unit OFF.

Other than EV driving, your contribution?

ZC1

 

So you are saying no one in the good ol USA won't attempt the store at low charge thinking they can fill up while shopping?
(this discussion has nothing to do with a full or partial charge, but with defective charging units and the people who unrealistically depend on this charge)

If so, you misunderstand the public.

ZC1

 

Until utilities are mandated to buy back excess power that's generated, there is no incentive for a parking lot to install solar panels. There's no where for the juice to go. Most don't use it except for lighting at night. So....you're also talking batteries that will run the lights at night from the power generated during the day. But if you cover an entire parking lot...you'll generate more than the lights would need all night. So we're back to the utilities getting a free ride. My local will NOT buy any excess power. So no one installs more than they need for personal use. (And the Gov. rebates won't pay for more than you use.) The utility also tacks on an exhorbitant hook up, service/use/extortion fee. That's why the school district shut down it's recently installed solar panels. They were paying MORE than before they installed them. It increased utility costs instead of saving.

 

Ah see.... we don't allow swallows in the US. Seriously though it just hasn't been a problem. One reason is that those panels get pretty darn hot. Not sure the little buggers would survive. They'd come back to some poached eggs. The panels are relatively close to the ground (compared to trees) so I'm not sure how many birds would feel secure enough to build nests. And if there WERE nests, at least you could see them. You park under a tree, and man, I've come back to a car that I can't see out of at all, and I never did see the dang birds!

 

So what was your statement implying? Sounded to like you were grasping for reasons that EVs won't work. What WAS the point of your comment? I'm sorry I missed it. Didn't contain much "can-do" attitude, or it totally escaped me.

Here's the big difference. You are being "realistic" about what WILL happen (in your mind), and I am being realistic about what DOES happen - right now, in the real world. You are guessing at the problem, and I'm living with the situation on a daily basis. Your reality is apparently more real than mine? What is it your're looking for? Me to say that sometimes a charger might be broken? Yup. It happens. We fix 'em. It is pretty obvious when a charger isn't working. You get full confirmation that the charger is operational (or not) when you plug in. The chance of plugging in, walking away for two hours and coming back to a surprise are slim. The chance exists, certainly. And that would suck. Just like a flat tire would suck... and slightly less likely.

Ah! and you speak of me "making assumptions that aren't warranted." Nice. I don't take any of this personally. I just don't suffer fools lightly. There is enough disinformation floating around out there without needing more wild-nice person guesses being tossed onto the pile. Having you explain to me what dealing with an EV and the charging infrastructure is like - or what it will be like in the future - is similar to me trying to explain brain surgery to... well, to a brain surgeon. I not only live with EVs, I deal directly with the public charging infrastructure on a daily basis.

Nope. I'm saying that neither one is worth worrying about. And either one could happen. And that if the charging one DOES happen, that it isn't likely to kill you. To be clear, it certainly is possible to have a non-functioning charging station. It is also possible to have a non-functioning car (of any description). Shit happens. You deal with it.

Yup. And reported on by drivers. We maintain them, and watch out for them. We have no other choice.

I'd like it to be. I'm not sure what you mean though.

What the hell does this have to do with the price of rice? To my knowledge, no. NO sit-ins were harmed in the formation of this charging site.

I could get that for you... is it somehow worth your while to know? I'm pretty sure that it isn't worth MY time. Is this somehow tied into charger reliability in a way that I'm not familiar with?

You can think it all you want. I'm trying to tell you how it actually is.

What you're doing with the heat is awesome. Would love to see some info on how all that works... not sure I understand completely. And I thank you for being part of the solution. You seem to imply that driving an EV is my only contribution to lowering my footprint? Yikes. How much time ya got?

1. I don't drive hardly at all. Any car. I ride my bikes more than I drive any car. My wife commutes in the EV when she doesn't ride to work with me on our tandem.
2. All of the electricity for my home AND our main commute vehicle comes from the sun.
3. We grow much of what we eat. Most of the rest comes from local, sustainable farms. Even my beer comes from no more than a few miles away.
4. We don't eat much meat.
5. We produce almost no trash.
6. Tonight I'm sleeping on the back patio with my daughter to avoid turning on the AC to cool our upstairs bedroom. Was 101 today.

I'm really not in the mood to justify my existence to you, so I think I'll stop there...

 

There is no fee to charge at any public charging station in CA. It would cost more to implement a payment solution than the electricity consumed is worth. And we have a bit over 2,000 stations across the state at this time. I live in an area that is awash in them. There are 50 public chargers within 18 miles of my house. Not bad for an abandoned infrastructure, huh?

If there are more than six cars that want to charge here, then the next guy can go 0.4 miles down the road and choose one of the four there, or 0.5 miles beyond that. If EV's catch on (sorry, WHEN EVs catch on... we really don't have much choice!), the idea is that chargers will ramp up to keep pace. That's exactly what happened when we had the production cars 10 years ago... All the chargers we have today are from that period, though we've moved them around a bit to cover more area. We have kept them alive when the car makers abandoned them. Once EVs are popular, businesses will be smart enough to figure out that installing chargers will pay for themselves by attracting more customers. That is the whole reason Costco has put in so many EV chargers here in CA. When gas cars became popular 100 years ago, we had no gas stations. None! Anywhere! Look where we are today. And chargers are WAY the heck easier to put in than a gas station! I fully expect that chargers of the future will have a payment system integrated into them. For now they're offered as a public service - much like street lighting - except consuming way less energy, and helping to clean the air way more. CA is willing to spend billions for the "hydrogen highway" boondoggle. Once we wash our hands of that, we can start concentrating on the technology that is here and ready to go. Public money will likely get it started, and private money will keep it going.

Another point - missed by ZC1 somehow - is that chargers are the future will be way different from the clunky things we have today. They'll be as reliable as plugging your vacuum into the outlet in your living room. In unsafe areas, the infrastructure would likely be kept behind locked panels - accessed with key cards or the like.

But anyway... EVs are coming (again). We'll figure it all out if we managed to figure out how to distribute gasoline to hundreds of millions of cars across the country.

 

Discussion with Darrelldd taken to PM.

ZC1

 

Me personally, I'd rather have trees in the parking lots and solar on roofs. A parking lot covered in trees is a much more aesthetically pleasing place to be than one with no trees or covered with solar and its associated supports, tubing, and framework.

EV charging stations can still be installed in tree covered parking lots . . . it only takes a little extra wire to get that solar power down from the roof.

One place I wouldn't mind seeing solar is along freeway medians. God knows we have plenty of freeways, and many of those medians don't have sun blocking trees within hundreds of feet.

Sacramento has a world renowned urban forest. I'd rather live amongst the trees than a concrete and steel solar forests.