Do you have any thoughts on covering parking lots with solar arrays, and using the panels to charge EVs underneath? I've heard people who are into ground-mount and utility-scale only say that parking lots aren't good. Hard to imagine anything more utility-scale or ground-mounted than a huge open expanse of asphalt. The other piece would be, what's the ratio of panels to parking spot that wouldn't require outside power? I guess at current rates of EV adoption, that it's not a problem, but maybe you couldn't power every car in the lot with the panels above. Not sure though.
Good question, Dan. It's a bit outside my area of expertise, but I'm inclined to be favorable to the idea. On-site battery storage is needed to capture excess energy that can be disbursed at times the sun isn't shining or when there are demand peaks. I believe a handful of Tesla Supercharger stations do this; in my prior "Road Trip" post I mentioned visiting the Kettleman City location, which was a parking lot covered with solar arrays.
In terms of sizing the array, it will depend on geographic location and tilt angle of the panels (how much sun you can get), type of charging offered (DC fast charging requiring far more energy than slower-speed charging), and typical charging behavior (incl. # of daily sessions, vehicle battery sizes). I've seen various online calculators estimate # of panels needed per vehicle but there's a wide range of context-dependent answers.
Do you have any thoughts on covering parking lots with solar arrays, and using the panels to charge EVs underneath? I've heard people who are into ground-mount and utility-scale only say that parking lots aren't good. Hard to imagine anything more utility-scale or ground-mounted than a huge open expanse of asphalt. The other piece would be, what's the ratio of panels to parking spot that wouldn't require outside power? I guess at current rates of EV adoption, that it's not a problem, but maybe you couldn't power every car in the lot with the panels above. Not sure though.
Good question, Dan. It's a bit outside my area of expertise, but I'm inclined to be favorable to the idea. On-site battery storage is needed to capture excess energy that can be disbursed at times the sun isn't shining or when there are demand peaks. I believe a handful of Tesla Supercharger stations do this; in my prior "Road Trip" post I mentioned visiting the Kettleman City location, which was a parking lot covered with solar arrays.
In terms of sizing the array, it will depend on geographic location and tilt angle of the panels (how much sun you can get), type of charging offered (DC fast charging requiring far more energy than slower-speed charging), and typical charging behavior (incl. # of daily sessions, vehicle battery sizes). I've seen various online calculators estimate # of panels needed per vehicle but there's a wide range of context-dependent answers.