memes

The foundations used to support both pictures are the same: W6x9 or W6x10.4 W-beams.

Carports are more expensive, though, because those foundations need to be just as long as the ground-mount ones + 14' to support the panels above parking spaces. And often, ground-mounts can use alternative foundations like helical piles or ground screws which don't need to be embedded as deep as W-beams. This shaves down foundation costs.

Then, you have to consider the steel trusses needed to distribute complex carports loads, which are simplified or non-existent with ground-mounts.

Then, you often have concrete encasements around carport foundations to protect the foundations from vehicles collisions.

All of this contributes to carport solar PV being the MOST expensive out of any alternative.

And if anyone is curious, for Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar in urban/suburban contexts, cost effective PV usually goes roof-mount < ground-mount < canopy-mount. For utility/DG-scale, ground-mount is king.

Convert parking lots to fields & sparingly cover them with solar panels?

Both. Agriphotovoltaik is neat stuff, proctects the more sensitive plants and enables farmers to generate more income, making them less depending on subsidies, bad crops, etc.

Given that :

A : agriphotovoltaism, can drive up most field yields because loads of places are now too dry and too hot in the summer. Solar panels block the excess sun and keep the moisture in the ground. Conversely, you can't park more cars under solar panels.

B : your average field is much larger than a car park. So installing a solar power plant is more efficient in a field (less paperwork per square meter, spend more time building than moving material around...).

C : car parks are often surrounded by buildings which will block the sun. This doesn't happen on most fields (which rarely have tall trees)

D : a car raming into your poles is bound to happen and you pretty much have to replace the whole pole. A cow ramming into your pole might happen, the pole won't give a fuck.

E : installing solar panels above car park is a lot more expensive (taller infrastructure, need more space between poles so need chonkier poles, maintenance high up is way more costly, etc ) And solar panel companies usually work on a much tighter budget than say the petrol industry for exemple. So every dollar counts

Anyway, next time please do some research instead of posting a divisive post and spreading misconception ;)

Edit : as some others pointed out :

• destroying natural environments in order to put up solar panels is not okay. Which i totally agree with. That's why I was talking of agriphotovoltaism specifically.
• if we get the opportunity, we might as well put up solar panels in both fields and cities. We shouldn't paint it as an either/or situation because it risks dividing the pro solar population and i don't need to explain why this is a bad idea

Because with how many parking lots there are in the US it would crash the cost of electricity by sending supply to the moon.

Can't have that. Oligarch lobbyism go brrr.

cost. it's significantly more expensive to cover parking lots and roofs than fields, because somebody has to climb a ladder to install it.

also many places are already covering the parking lots. which is mostly as a marketing gag i suspect, or to produce the electricity themselves that they feed to the cars instead of having to buy it over the grid. which might be cheaper if the grid has high profit margins.

Cover the car parks, make private cars obsolete, turn car parks into fields

Or, or, hear me out. Deprioritize cars. Build public transportation/car free spaces/walkable cities, reduce/eliminate parking lots. Require smaller more fuel efficient vehicles. Build solar panels on rooftops/windowpanes. Plant and protect trees and other native plants.

Oh damn. First time I see this idea. That's awesome. Great utilization of available space.

And all walls, windows, surfaces... because... there have already long been developed (scant ever deployed) photovoltaic paint, photovoltaic dyes, ways to make road/pavement surfaces photovoltaic, not to mention also, simultaneouslly, wind walls, to eliminate eating up farmland and the sea with wind turbines. The paints and dyes (afaiagtu) are more efficient in shallow and ambient low light [than the typical^], which is perfect for such use.

Not to mention other microgeneration... because that'd be too emancipatory and upsetting the industrial leverage over workers and consumers.

They

And don't do Solar Roadways.