Discussion: Parking lots and solar farms. - eviltoast

We all know America has a massive problem with sprawl and mandatory parking minimums, however there does seem to be a trend of easing these arbitrary minimums. With that said, we still have massive parking lots with nothing happening.

What is preventing that land from being leased and turned into solar farms? Or for that matter - active parking lots? Why not build raised structure to put solar farms over top of parking lots - not just here in the us - but everywhere?

Pro being … Energy? Shade for cars? Something to look at other parking lots?

Cons being… Safety? Shady people in shady places? Something to look at other than solar farms?

I know there are articles on this - but just wanted to hear y’all’s thoughts on it since it’s been rattling in my head for a minute.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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    7 months ago

    We have a bunch of that around my area too. The first was actually a high school. I think it was some sort of proof of concept thing. I bunch of colleges have that now so I assume there is some sort of grant.

    There is a college on the coast that is a converted military base with massive amounts of unused/parking space. They added a huge ammonts of solar to power a significant portion of the campus.

    And everything I just said was at least 15 years ago. It works pretty well.