New South Korean national law will turn large parking lots into solar farms
132 comments
·November 2, 2025jandrese
testing22321
I’d much rather look out across a city and see solar panel islands rather than a coal smoke stack belching smoke, a nuke cooling tower or a massive dam.
Just because old school power generation is often out of sight, it shouldn’t be out of mind
ACCount37
I don't mind things like huge cooling towers or massive dams. They're majestic in the same way ancient pyramids are majestic. On top of being useful infrastructure and not just oversized landscaping pieces.
JoeAltmaier
Trivial national production compared with a single dam.
thelastgallon
The asteroid that hit the planet and made dinosaurs go extinct was pretty majestic too! It was a sight to behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq3nWnTkFbk
1.1 to 1.2 billion tons of coal ash are produced each year globally from 9 billion tonnes. These are pretty majestic for kids to roll in and have fun.
awesomecomment
I personally don't know but I feel like, we also need to think of the environmental changes of something like solar batteries if we store the energy
There was a michael moore's documentary regarding climate change and I personally think that the best solution climate-wise speaking is probably nuclear but the whole world's sentiment is so regulated by lobby-ists which is why the cost of production of them and regulations shot up to an unreasonable amounts but the world was already transitioning to nuclear energies.
There are some new modular approaches to it which aren't as efficient but feel safer to the general public but nuclear is one of the most safest and compact sources of massive amounts of energy generation compared to solar and wind.
Nuclear Energy is cool.
Now am I right/wrong in saying this, let me know, I think I am right but I maybe wrong too, but its just that every expert I have seen on this topic really prefer's nuclear and my own "research" on this topic makes me feel the same really.
Somebody should write more clearly as to why nuclear is superior to solar and the others as a comment as I feel like I have written similar things atleast once more and maybe if there could be a nice website like why.nuclear or why-nuclear.net etc. which could give points of why nuclear is a superior form, it could be really great and I would love to hear more arguments both good and bad comparison with nuclear (primarily) and maybe comparing it with solar if somebody's an expert on this topic as I would love to hear an expert about it as well.
tomrod
I don't mind nuclear. Good for base load.
boshomi
Base load becomes very expensive under free and fair market conditions. The reason is simple: wind and PV are extremely cheap, and surplus capacity costs little. PV module price in EU is just 0.086 UDS/W fob. Wind turbine price in China ~2200Yuan/kW inclusive tower.
In a free market, this leads to attractive conditions for batteries, and that is where the problem of base load begins: there is a lack of real demand, and base load then remains unused because its OPEX cannot compete with wind and PV.
There's just one problem. There is virtually no free and fair market in the electricity market. Utilities lobby very successfully for highly regulated markets to protect their monopolies. Nuclear power requires massive government protection from competition, which makes it attractive to utilities.
Reason077
> ”I don't mind nuclear. Good for base load.”
Everyone who has an electricity bill or pays taxes should be against new-build nuclear power because it is pretty much the most expensive way to produce electricity. You should instead lobby for wind, solar, and even closing coal power plants in favour of modern natural gas plants. All of those will cut more emissions, more quickly, per dollar spent.
seb1204
Base load is something of the past. Base load does no longer exist as such as during daytimes the solar curve will / should push it to zero as surplus capacity is cheap. Running base load plays at night is then also no longer sensible.
Tade0
Let's also not forget about the haze of photochemical smog everywhere there are combustion vehicles.
Today I walked by someone dropping off people from his diesel VW Passat B6. You could smell that thing from afar and it bothers me that it's still considered roadworthy.
DANmode
Diesel particles are heavy.
rayiner
What’s wrong with a nuke cooling tower?
rainsford
I admit this is subjective, but they're giant ugly concrete chimney-like structures spewing stuff into the air. Sure, intellectually I know it's just water vapor and they're form is dictated by their function, but they look like they belong in some pollution riddled dystopian hellscape.
I'm actually pro-nuclear power, but the cooling towers are a pretty significant eyesore and a non-trivial downside. But apparently some people hate the way wind turbines look while I think they're sleek and futuristic looking, so taste as ever is subjective.
null
hk1337
Do you see any of those things now?
testing22321
Personally, no. My brother does. My sister does.
Hundreds of millions of people do, and their health would improve if they didn’t.
deadbabe
What if we designed nuclear cooling towers to be more aesthetic? Maybe it would become desirable to see.
lazide
I’m not aware of any sizable cities with coal smoke stacks, nuke towers, or visible large dams.
Are you?
Scoundreller
No matter what, the canopy solar system will be more expensive than ground mounting. You have to build for more wind loading. For a car to crash into it and not fall over. And now that the public is around, build that much stronger to never fall over. And secure the wiring that much better against the public.
Better to replace some farmland, which you can make a strong argument for if you're growing crops for biodiesel or fuel-ethanol were the sun-to-wheel efficiency is terrible.
> Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands that take up way too much space.
I've got bad news about nearly black PV panels... it might be cooler under them, but around them is a different story.
My personal thought is to saturate rooftops before going for the poorer ROI parking lot PV canopies.
wakawaka28
>Better to replace some farmland, which you can make a strong argument for if you're growing crops for biodiesel or fuel-ethanol were the sun-to-wheel efficiency is terrible.
Yeah, who needs to eat anyway? Lol it is perfectly fine to put this shit in parking lots. In hot climates, it's a benefit to customers to have covered parking. The wiring should be no more fragile than, say, power lines or lighting fixtures in the area. Parking lots are also better because it doesn't matter as much if water leaks between or around the solar panels. Putting them on rooftops tends to cause roof leaks and it presents problems for roof repairs.
>I've got bad news about nearly black PV panels... it might be cooler under them, but around them is a different story.
Higher temps around black PVs should be similar to black asphalt. Also, the thermal mass of the PVs is lower, so they will not stay as hot in the evening.
There are probably issues with PVs related to ice buildup and hail. They probably don't make sense in places with those issues.
Reason077
> ”the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions are low volume niche products that cost way more than traditional ground mounts.“
Yes, but if you’re building shade canopies over the parking lot anyway (this is quite common in southern Europe, for example) the marginal cost to add solar to the design will be relatively small. And if the government is backing it, production volumes will rise so it’s no longer a niche product. Economies of scale.
hinkley
Solar already has economies of scale. There are three types of projects called out in How Big Projects Get Done and what they all have in common is that what you do on day 25 is mostly refinement of what you were doing on day four. Those are roads, solar, and wind projects. The self similarity means you are more likely to hit your targets. Because you just go faster and faster as you figure out the choreography. And the known unknowns.
csdreamer7
> It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade.
Pedestrians too.
hinkley
I love the idea but execution will determine if this is better for pedestrians. Poorly executed parking solar could reduce sightlines and escape routes by crowding ground level.
Hopefully this will be the sort of thing where we try different strategies quickly and pick winners and losers.
India has done a lot of work with covering irrigation canals with solar, and in some ways that’s a simpler problem so it makes sense that this is happening now instead of earlier. Big successful systems start as small successful ones. Maybe there is some substantial knowledge transfer that can occur there.
Scoundreller
Depends on the season!
In winter I'd park my car at a train station and be sure to have the windshield pointed west so the car would be a bit toasty when I got in.
shermantanktop
> solar panels are no less ugly than asphalt.
Matter of taste. But I find geometric rows of tilted rectangles much less noisy (visually) than a zillion random cars, or an acre of cracked asphalt.
hinkley
Solar operators aren’t cranking the bass so high that the windmills are leaving rust shadows on the road at stop lights.
Well, at least not so far.
circuit10
I think maybe it was supposed to say “no more”
hinkley
Some stores build parking for peak traffic days and a few people have suggested that it would be better if the outer bits of your lot were built using permeable pavement to reduce the amount of runoff that has to go onto the storm sewers. The little rain gardens we see now do something but not much.
NedF
[dead]
cyberax
> Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands that take up way too much space.
Wait until you hear about public transit...
> Generally the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions are low volume niche products that cost way more than traditional ground mounts.
Not really. You don't need anything unusual, just regular flat panels. The main expense is building the canopy itself to conform to all the requirements for hurricane/seismic resistance.
Havoc
This happened pretty organically in south africa, especially on malls.
* Prevents being affected by grid blackouts
* Seen as progressive / eco by customers and ofc shade
* You've got captive demand - air-conditioning giant mall & food shops need industrial fridges
* Enough scale to do meaningful grid feed in
* Already have the infra to do generator switch over
* Access to financing and ability to plan over the 10 years or so that it takes to recover cost
rurp
I wish the IRA infrastructure bill from a few years ago had included something like this. Not the total mandate, but these should be subsidized and encouraged. These installations actually improve an area and have multiple benefits. Instead the US bill incentivizes detroying large swaths of wild land which is unfortunate.
thelastgallon
This is not a bad idea. EVs can charge during the day, go home fully charged, connect to the grid and supply power to the grid. EV batteries are humongous and a large number of them will become an energy reservoir. All excess production during the day (which is being curtailed now) can be stored in Evs and reused later throughout the day.
The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying.
Youden
I'm an EV owner and homeowner and looked into V2X when planning my solar/residential battery system.
On the home side, the hardware is largely there. The charger I'm buying and many others support it - though many need a future software update. On the vehicle side though, it's very inconsistent; there are only a few vehicles that support it and even for those, what my installer told me is that the manufacturer warranties typically either void the warranty entirely if V2(G/H) is used or harshly limit the amount of energy that can be used. They're concerned that it will lead to excess wear on the battery, the main component of an EV.
And I think I agree with them. With current battery technology, I don't think using EVs as a grid-scale storage system for renewables is viable. For grid-scale or residential storage, you want a battery that can be as heavy and physically large as it needs to be but it needs to deal with a lot of charge/discharge cycles. Your best option here right now is LiFePO. For the kind of EV people are generally willing to buy right now, you need to cram as much range into the car as you can, which means the battery needs to be as energy-dense as possible and charge/discharge cycles are less of a concern. That means LiPo.
I think the most realistic use of EVs for grid-scale integration is what they're calling "virtual plant", where they're treated like a separate source of energy that the grid can tap into in exceptional situations.
rootusrootus
> That means LiPo.
IIRC the most popular EV battery technology today is LFP.
ungreased0675
This seems really inefficient, everyone transporting around a bunch of excess capacity? Smaller, lighter, cheaper electric cars paired with a properly built and resilient grid seems like a better goal to me.
They’d wear out roads less, use less resources to make, be safer to others in crashes, etc. I dislike the trend of increasingly larger vehicles just to move a single person around 87% of the time.
seb1204
Yeah, most commutes are less than 100 km but would you buy a car with 100-200km range? How's your range anxiety?
I'm not so sure about less resources as the majority of the car is still required only smaller battery.
0xbadcafebee
V2G is a pipe dream. Nobody has gotten out of the pilot program phase, largely because the return on investment isn't convincing. If you can't make a profit off it it doesn't happen.
majoe
> V2G is a pipe dream.
Seems a bit early to come to this conclusion, but I would also suspect, that the value of a parking garage full of EVs is not in providing energy to the grid but as a large scale consumer for load shaping.
fluoridation
Seems like an easy solution would be for the car to provide energy for the house, rather than the entire grid, and reduce overall load.
baq
Not too much of a difference if the house is connected to the grid.
thelastgallon
Oh yes, the return on investment is very convincing for most of the big companies! Like Uber: https://uberlosses.com/
null
lostlogin
> The best thing is that EV owners can be paid during the day for providing demand and paid again in the evening and at night for supplying.
How would this work? Who is then paying for the solar?
thelastgallon
The utility. The utility operates a 24/7 electricity marketplace that perfectly matches supply and demand. Supply must follow demand. If demand decreases, pricing becomes negative until supply decreases. This is problematic because we aren't utilizing all the excess energy generated by solar and wind. Which is all free.
Wholesale prices went negative about 200 million times: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-r... (https://archive.is/nFsOk)
Regional clusters emerged, for example, in the Permian Basin in western Texas, and in Kansas and western Oklahoma in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), negative prices accounted for more than 25% of all hours. Negative electricity prices result either from local congestion of the transmission system leading supply to exceed demand locally or due to system-wide oversupply. :https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/plentiful-electricity-turns...
Edit: This is called curtailment. It is now ~20% and increasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtailment_(electricity)
somedude895
That's exactly what I want is for my car's battery to be drained overnight.
thelastgallon
If you set the app to allow it to be drained overnight, then it may be drained overnight. Similar to forgetting to pump gas into the tank and getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. Most people are a bit smarter than that.
wffurr
What about the top 10% or 20%? It would be just like using “reserve mode” but you’d get paid for it. And have the option to turn it off before a road trip.
redserk
And have extra wear on your battery that would far outweigh anything you’d get out of it?
I’m down about 18% capacity after 4 years of owning my current EV. It’s still plenty for my needs but I would be very disappointed if I saw this capacity drop much sooner or if it drops much more.
A replacement would be ~$15k and the cost of replacing the car would be a lot greater.
I’m very much digging the current strategy of grid-tied batteries and the myriad of companies working to re-use battery packs for grid batteries.
scotty79
I think it's perfectly sensible to charge it at work to full, then partially discharge in the evening after coming back home. Especially since that energy could mostly power your own home. If you have enough left in the morning to drive back to work it would be fine.
Basically you would haul (hopefully cheap) electricity form your work, to your home to use it in the evening.
nandomrumber
Paid for supplying demand!
I’ll believe that when I see it.
tomrod
Spot pricing in energy markets goes negative when there is too much energy in the grid. Someone gets paid to take it out.
nandomrumber
Never the retail customer
pingou
We have a similar law in France. Something is unclear to me though:
"build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions."
Not sure what that means but that doesn't seem right.
imoverclocked
I have to wonder if they are taking into account the AC usage or other factors to get there; When you park in the shade, you don't have to cool your car down nearly as much. This effect is greater in hot deserts with lots of sun. There are likely other benefits to the vehicles and infrastructure.
thelastgallon
The complete sentence for context:
"Here in the US, we’re proving that out, too – the Northwest Fire District in Arizona partnered with Standard Solar to build a conceptually similar, 657 kW solar carport system across 12 parking lots (shown, above) that delivers more than 1.23 million kWh of clean, emissions-free power annually and offsets the equivalent of 185,000 vehicles’ worth of harmful carbon emissions."
_aavaa_
Which part?
12 parking lots
657 kW nameplate capacity
1.23 GWh per year of energy production
The 185,000 cubicles worth of CO2 emissions is likely based on average pollution per car, and average carbon intensity of the local grid.
pingou
The average emissions for a car is 4.6 tons of co2. The average carbon intensity of U.S. electricity generation is around 384 grams of co2 per kWh. 1230000 * 0.384 / 1000 = 472 tons. But 185000 cars emit 851000 tons so 500 tons is like a rounding error, unless I am mistaken.
hinkley
Either it’s a full on hallucination or they intend the power to be used to charge electric vehicles. Which is a stretch because solar parking isn’t going to sell that many electric vehicles. It will sell some, but not that many more.
null
jopsen
Their new law requires parking lots with more than 80 spaces to have solar panels.
Great idea, where I live I'm pretty much maxing out the percentage of permitted structures allowed by zoning.
I could imagine that if solar panel carports didn't count towards structure limits, I'd build a carport across my absurdly large driveway :)
I think there are lots of "free" ways we could incentivize private construction of solar panels -- even without monetary subsidies.
Or we could even tax people for not doing it. In Denmark your land is taxed based on what it's zoned for, and how it could be utilized (not how it is utilized).
hinkley
I think I would like it if it better if it were an either or.
Either solar panels, or rain gardens, or permeable pavement, or canopy, or some combination.
But then again that might make loopholes that make my head spin. Might have to leave the higher rung up to organizations like LEED and leave the minimums as one or maybe two choices. Maybe make the other harder than solar unless you have a weird situation where say adding trees is simpler than running power distribution, like across the street from the shop.
FooBarWidget
I hope this doesn't result in new parking lots to "coincidentally" only have 79 parking lots.
hinkley
Some of us wouldn’t minds so much. That puts a cap on how car focused commercial real estate can be.
jansan
A quick reminder that South Korea is closer to the equator than Spain or Greece.
testing22321
It doesn’t matter. I’m in Canada in a tight valley where it snows a ton and my rooftop solar makes $1000 of power a year. Solar is so cheap now, and still falling, it makes sense literally everywhere.
tejohnso
Why aren't new developments including rooftop solar as a standard selling feature? If it makes sense it should be a no brainer right? Your new $800,000 home comes with a solar installation so you never pay for heating, cooling, power supply.
thelastgallon
New homes should be built with
1) EV chargers or 240V outlets in the garage
2) Heat pump water heater
3) Heat pump for HVAC
4) Induction stove
5) Solar panels, better yet, solar roofs
6) Main panel that supports V2X (vehicle to home, to grid)
7) Ethernet cabling throughout, we can make most devices PoE, also enable smart home
This can eliminate $ 1,000+ energy bills, which are now split between gas bills for two cars, natural gas for the water heater, heating, and cooking.
ACCount37
Labor and permitting costs.
Those are already a large part in housing costs, and rooftop solar panels? That's both roofing work and installation of advanced electric equipment. And the market doesn't seem to have that many people who base their buying decisions on whether the house has solar panels installed.
Labor costs are going to stick around until we get humanoid robots to work well. But the permitting situation could sure benefit from a lot of regulation being purged.
mattlondon
I believe this is due in the UK (from 2027) which is quite far north from the equator: new homes need a certain percentage of the roof covered in solar cells.
It won't be enough to be self sufficient but it does offset a bit I guess
whatevaa
You have a big peek in early summer/late spring and a nosedive during winter. Still need generation capacity for winter.
metabagel
And South Korea is at about the same latitude as Tennessee and North Carolina.
jansan
I will never stop to amaze me how far to the south the USA is compared to Europe on average. I live near Berlin and even most Canadians live further to the south than me.
jldugger
In contrast, it will never amaze me how far north Europe is. Canada weather is cold and yet y'all live even further north!
scotty79
Europe is uniquely hot for how far North it is. It's due to Gulf Stream and we might lose it at some point as the climate change progresses.
aegypti
That is generally worse for PV potential, clouds, rain etc
jandrese
Being further north does have some advantages. If the panels are angled more to get a better view of the sun they will also be better at shedding snow loads.
lostlogin
There was a recent discussion here on vertical panels. The data was better than I’d have guessed.
whatevaa
The amount of power you get from panels in winter is pathetically low with or without snow.
gnarlouse
It floors me that the whole world is pretty content saying “okay cool solar/wind/renewables” and then theres the uneducated states of america who is rejecting all of it
treis
This is performative. If it were economically viable there'd be panels in parking lots. They're not because the land isn't the expensive part. It's the installation, maintenance, and ancillary equipment that makes solar expensive these days.
eigenspace
If you look at it as a way of disincentivizing wasting land on parking lots, it makes a lot of sense
treis
It's probably not going to do that either. The number of spaces per lot will move to below the limit and more lots will be created to make up the difference. The net will likely be less efficient utilization of lots leading to more overall land usage
toomuchtodo
Sometimes we do things that the market has failed to price properly because there is still value not captured in the economics. That is not performance, that is internalizing unpriced externalities. The free market, perfect information, and perfect prices do not exist.
France has similar legislation.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/11/18/france-publishes-new-...
cmrdporcupine
Yes, because the fossil fuel and energy markets are famously free of political/economic manipulation, and military and ideological intervention .. by both state and private actors.
Urban planning, too.
james4k
I wish it was a matter of education. Unfortunately that has little to do with the problem.
bigstrat2003
> the uneducated states of america
It's really not cool to insult people, you know. This is in just as poor taste as when smug Americans say "Europoors".
Forbo
As an American, we deserve the derision. Please, continue shaming us, maybe some day people will get sick enough of it to try to prove them wrong.
That's probably asking too much, though.
hinkley
As an American who usually gets mistaken for a Canadian while traveling, I know that some of us know they aren’t talking about us, but also that the people who they are talking about aren’t even in the conversation.
It’s effectively talking about people behind their back which is not that useful.
gnarlouse
OP here. I am American. We are the Uneducated fucking States.
rootusrootus
> "Europoors"
A term I don't think I've ever heard. Insulting America, on the other hand, is by orders of magnitude the favorite sport of the Internet.
cmrdporcupine
Don't worry, the US is actively trying to export that rejection, too, so it won't be alone. See Trump's messed up rant at the UN, and the policies and proposals of his conservative allies here in Canada.
Alberta was the the fastest growing renewable producer in Canada due to high winds and long solar days and low cloud cover. The provincial government in the pocket of the oil industry banned renewable developments for months under the excuse that it was "destroying farmland" and then came back months later with a policy that hamstringed future development.
to these people, renewables are a threat because they can't be a parasite off it.
boothby
The astonishing thing to me is that the production of solar panels is a huge source of mining and manufacturing jobs. Just like heat pumps. If we were serious about the objectives stated by the conservatives, Canada could easily be a world leader with Alberta and Saskatchewan profiting handsomely.
lazide
Very unlikely to be able to compete with China at scale however - especially since China is already at huge scale.
Generally the problem with carpark solar is the mounting solutions are low volume niche products that cost way more than traditional ground mounts. My biggest hope is that this policy creates a marketplace with actual competition that comes up with more cost efficient mounting solutions that make it practical worldwide.
Parking lots are horrible. They're butt ugly heat islands that take up way too much space. While adding solar on them doesn't solve the last issue, it does help mitigate the heat island effect and solar panels are no less ugly than asphalt. Plus it is power creation right next to where it is being consumed for minimal transfer losses. It's also much nicer for the vehicles parked there to be in the shade.