this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
138 points (93.1% liked)

Green Energy

4372 readers
316 users here now

Everything about energy production and storage.

Related communities:

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] UltraBlack@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Half of their points make no sense

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I’ve also noticed Lemmy seems to have zero understanding of farming/plants/farming infrastructure and can’t understand that nearly all food crops require FULL sun and building an opaque canopy over crops that need FULL sun will absolutely decimate that crop, you can’t just grow plants on vibes they require very specific things, especially cultivars that humans have designed to make huge fruiting bodies, that takes SO MUCH ENERGY (sun)!

I see this problem a lot too in people asking about prepping, there doesn’t seem to be a well educated prepping community on Lemmy and the amount of people giving out advice like a backyard garden will sustain you as a food source in an emergency is not only wildly ill informed but dangerous for those taking the advice

[–] rabidhamster@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 14 hours ago

Yep, gotten into that argument, got downvoted into oblivion by pointing out that covering 80% of the space above crops with sun-blocking solar panels might, you know, affect the crops.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world -3 points 6 hours ago

Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.

[–] Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (3 children)

The left part is only true if the roofing has to be built explicitly for the panels. There are already covered parking lots, I can't see any downsides in just adding panels on top.

And I doubt that it requires longer cable runs than panels somewhere on a field.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for solar and wind. Put those panels everywhere possible, the more the better. I just don't get why even having this discussion.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 hours ago

Because we let the morons have power and now we're all paying for it

[–] paranoia@feddit.dk 10 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (21 children)

The structure for solar panels is much heavier than for pure sunshade, as a person will have to walk on it to install and maintain the panels. You also have to deal with the associated health and safety regulations for working at height and live electricity, as well as probably pay more for insurance since there is an increased risk of fire.

[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 3 points 14 hours ago

Why 1 purpose when 2 purpose possible?

Fuck cars, sure, but solar panels on roofing is smart.

load more comments (20 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 17 hours ago

Just convert every biofuel field into a solar field. Boom, year round power output and way more efficient than growing plants to burn.

Then work on replacing every car with electric.

Eventually it will be more cost effective to retrofit old structures.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 60 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

also, agrivoltaics is a thing. Judiciously placed solar panels can reduce ground heat and water use through evaporation, which can be beneficial for growing crops.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago

Wow, super cool and obvious once you see it.

[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 14 points 18 hours ago (8 children)

cool cool cool, except cities have 25% of their space taken up by parking lots, and land that has solar panels like on the right are pretty much stuck being just solar.

pavement does not need to be heated by the sun. and putting up a solar field needs to include the cost of the land, where as parking lots do not

[–] morto@piefed.social 7 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

If your city is 25% parking lots, you have a much deeper problem that solar panels won't solve

[–] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I think it's called North America.

[–] kurwa@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

The USA has corn fields specifically grown to be turned into FUEL. These crops are a waste. These fields can be used for solar instead.

[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 15 points 15 hours ago

i mean yes. but this isn’t about those problems specifically. but the average american city is apparently 22% parking lot upon a quick look.

if we are going to have nearly a quarter of a city as dead land, might as well as put up solar panels and lessen our dependency on destructive forms of power generation.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 11 hours ago

Start with existing empty roofs - parking garages, malls, office buildings, schools, apartment complexes, warehouses, industrial buildings, etc. Once we've run out of those empty spaces, we can start talking about where to build free-standing ones, but hopefully we won't need as many.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

My Aldi just put roofs over part of their parking last year. And then they put solar panels of the roof... of the store. Because yeah, there's way more space on the roof than on the parking and I bet it's 10x easier to put solar panels there.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

It's way easier.

Aside from initial install (crane), it's effectively the same as the right side of the image with the added benefit of not taking up any land

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 19 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

The parking lot economics don't figure if you'd be building a shelter for the lot anyway. Its hardly custom engineering, theres like 3 designs I see everywhere.

In places that get heavy sun/rain, it's quite common.

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 7 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I may live in a country that doesn't do this but I've never seen a parking lot with a shelter. If there is, it is used to park cars in top.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 11 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Theres a different type for cars.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 7 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

They also don't factor in the greenwashing of using solar panels to cover wasteful cars, when it would be much better for the environment to not have a parking lot to put solar panels over.

It sucks that for the past 50-100 years, places have been built somewhere on the scale between favoring cars to outright hostile to any other form of transportation. On the plus side, most of these places are so shoddily built that it is cheaper to tear them down than to maintain them. So destroying suburbia and replacing it with walkable neighborhoods is actually quite profitable for everyone except the car industry, not to mention beneficial for everyone living there.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 6 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

I don't think suburbia even needs to be destroyed and left fallow; anything with a motor smaller than a car works fine with car infrastructure, as long as there's not shittons of cars. It can just be densified by building regular parks or buildings where the parking lots were if the use of cars were restricted. My current motorbike gets 100mpg, my old one 160, and there's some electrics I've seen that easily keep up with traffic.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

I like to look at parking solar more like balcony solar. It's free real estate. Throw a few solar panels up here and there. Put a few on the existing light poles on the parking lot and/or around the perimeter. It's more about integrating small additive power generation to existing infrastructure than trying to extract maximum Kwh per square foot like field solar.

[–] tmyakal@infosec.pub 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

My company has a very green mission statement, and they did the solar parking lot right before COVID. After they built it, they realized that the design basically funneled snowmelt down to directly between every car, and the cooler ground froze it almost instantly.

So 80% of the workforce went remote during COVID, and the ones that stayed couldn't park in the lot during winter because it was an icy deathtrap.

[–] GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

If only somebody would invent...

...a gutter!

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago (8 children)

I'm confused by the title. Are you saying the stuff in the picture is wrong or misrepresenting reality, or the opposite?

[–] Footer1998@crazypeople.online 13 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

the picture is correct, there's a common post that does the rounds every now and again that says we should put solar panels over car parks instead of building dedicated solar farms, this image provides reasoning as to why dedicated solar farms are a good option, while also recognizing that solar panels over car parks also have their place

my personal opinion on this is, new solar panels should be installed in dedicated sun-tracking solar farms, and older/recycled panels are ideal for car parks, flat roofs, etc.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago

It stems from people having a shit idea of how much space there is in the world, too. Yes, too much of our infrastructure is car centric, but holy fuck buddy there’s a lot of land out there that doesn’t have anything on it right now.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] paranoia@feddit.dk 10 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

There are many NIMBYs that are against using fields for solar, and make the suggestion of covering car parks for it instead.

The purpose of this image is to explain the economics and design reasons for each option.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›