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Every installation has benefits and drawbacks:
- If you have humans walking below PV, you must prevent parts falling down
- The support must be quite wide, requiring more expensive carrying members
- Constrains traffic
- Cars are protected from hail and heat (good for car factories!)
- Makes electricity where it's needed
- Very visible progress toward renewables
France made it mandatory for large malls to install these btw.
The first two "cons" seem like non issues, and could be used for any structure ever.
Sounds like a bare minimum for an installation. Sure, it costs. And that is why it should be mandated.
Yeah, if we lived by that rule, industrial HVAC wouldn't exist because everyone would be afraid of things falling from the ceiling.
you must prevent parts falling down
So like any ceiling with HVAC, etc? I was thinking that the coverings were a boon to pedestrians due to the shade they provide on hot days (depends on location, of course)
So like any ceiling with HVAC, etc?
Yes, but HVAC systems rarely have to cover an entire parking lot. There's a lot of attendant infrastructure that comes with it. Compare that to dedicated rural solar fields, where you don't have to worry about people wandering in and around the panels. Its not a deal-breaker, but it does raise the unit price.
You have to engineer the supports to prevent collapse even if a car drives into them
Cars are protected from hail and heat (good for car factories!)
What? Car companies would love for your car to get damaged. That way, they can sell you replacement parts.
Once you buy them sure. But not while they are sitting on a lot outside the car factory waiting to get sold
You know most parking lots aren't at car dealerships right?
Yes, I'm just speaking to the point the comment was making, that solar panels over parking lots that are at car factories particularly benefit from the hail defense aspect because the parking lot owner (the factory) has a vested interest in maintaining the condition of the parked cars. This isn't an argument for any point of view, it's an explanation of what was clearly ambiguous language by the original commenter, based on your misinterpretation. The sass is unnecessary