Comment on To finally bury this one anti-renewables astroturfed Reddit comment
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week agoI think they’re saying the picture is wrong. Assuming you have the same amount of space, placing solar panels on the ground, or paving the ground and putting the solar panels on the roof of a car park, assuming also the same number of solar panels, it should generate about the same amount of energy. What do the solar panels care if they’re a few meters off the ground? Plus, the car park can lease or rent its spots and generate revenue that way as well.
paranoia@feddit.dk 1 week ago
It didn’t say anywhere about generating less power. It said it is more expensive per watt, which it is.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Okay. How so?
I get there’s an up-front cost of building more stuff. You have the solar panels in both pictures, but the one on the left has a car park as well. I also said they can lease/rent out the spaces. Which means it’s less expensive over time as those costs pay for themselves.
someguy3@lemmy.world 1 week ago
When over a parking lot, you can’t have supports columns every few feet. So now you’re spanning with a beam, then you need bigger columns, and bigger foundations. Construction of that is also more complicated requiring concrete, cranes, etc. It all adds up.
You could also be aggressive with the design in the field because if it tips over in a storm, who the fuck cares. You just pick it up and redo it.
paranoia@feddit.dk 1 week ago
The car park itself is going to generate the same money with or without the solar. Consider that irrelevant for this discussion.
Building the solar over the car park only really makes sense if you have absolutely nowhere else to put it. The land for solar is usually very cheap, compared to the cost of constructing a large gantry that is designed for vehicular impacts. If you need to do any repair, maintenance or replacement, you have to contend with all the cars in the carpark, or absolutely nothing in a field. You also need to do it at height (i.e., with a crane or lift), which is much more complex than just driving out with a van and doing it on the ground.
The only instances that I would recommend doing this are:
You are already building a gantry for shade.
You have a green target for the development and cannot achieve it with only rooftop solar on the buildings.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
I don’t see how the car park revenue is irrelevant. But, we’ll table that — neither of us are winning anyone over given the context the OP framed this shit in. Call it “agree to disagree.”
You’re 100% right about the maintenance of the panels, though. I feel like there’s probably an easy way to do it, like have an access ramp and a way to get a golf cart up there. But, it’s a stretch and you made a good point, so that point goes to you.
Side note: Anyone know why indented lists drop the first letter? I’m not seeing the “Y” that should be at the start of those bulleted items, or the bullets, dashes, or numbers. (I still knew what you meant. I’m bitching about the tech that runs this site.)