Solar Parking Lots

Now that we’ve got some old clunkers off the road, we can look towards the future of transportation.  When we threw in our two cents on the growth of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles last week, we touched on the concept of solar parking lots.  Also known as “solar trees,” photovoltaic panels are elevated on stands on the roofs of already-established garages or parking lots.  The panels themselves mimic branches of a tree, providing shade for the car while lowering the internal temperature on hot days.  An excellent use of previously underutilized space, solar parking lots can power nearby buildings, feed clean and renewable energy back into the grid, and establish the fueling infrastructure needed to popularize electric vehicles.

A fairly new and niche part of the solar market, solar parking lots are beginning to spring up in the States as the Tesla and GM Volt rise on the horizon.  One of the first to get in on the action was, as usual, Google.  In 2007, the innovative technology company installed 1.6MW of solar energy at its California headquarters.  On a random day in August, the panels pumped out 5,024 kilowatt-hours of electricity.  That’s enough energy to run your dishwasher 3,138 times!   And some of this renewable energy is fed directly into the company’s two solar carports, designed to shade employee cars and offer battery charging for those with electric vehicles.  Of course, Google is not the only one building solar parking lots.  Kyocera, UCSD Hopkins, UCSD Gilman, NREL, the City of Napa, and several others have all knocked on the door of the most prominent player in the solar parking lot field: Envision Solar.

Based out of San Diego, Envision Solar’s ParkSolar™ systems are aesthetically pleasing and extremely exciting.  Where net metering is available, such structures can shift from stand-alone electricity systems to distributed sources of clean and renewable energy.  Not only can the excess power from the solar panels be fed back into the grid, but cars that are fully charged can also loop back and fuel the grid when demand is peaking.  A double whammy of energy, if you will.  And Envision doesn’t plan to stop at carports.  The company has the idea to bring solar trees to the average American backyard: offering a LifeShade™ of eight solar panels designed to complement a patio, act as a canopy while lounging poolside, and provide power for both the grill and whatever else you may have running outside.  Other ideas are solar powered barns, stand-alone solar trees, and even entire solar villages.

So what does all of this mean for us, the consumer of electricity?  Not only will we have more options for how to power our homes and our cars, our supply of clean energy will also increase as more and more solar parking lots and other innovative solar structures are brought into the market.  And as more PV capacity is installed nationwide, the price for kilowatt-hour of solar energy will fall.  Here at GetSolar, we’ll be sure to follow the rising popularity of solar parking garages, as such “solar trees” will help save two different types of green: both our money and our planet.