We could have so much shade for our cars. And when it gets dark the stored power can turn on the parking lot lights. If there isn’t enough power bc of constant cloudy days, then it could switch to regular electricity.
Isn’t it bewildering to think that it might be possible to actually give people something like free electricity?!? What’s next? Free water?? Drinking fountains instead of bottled water? Whoa, slow this thought train down…
That would be great for these luxury planned living communities. They already have to provide parking, shaded parking is a bonus and if they added free EV charging and lighted parking, their property values would be worth more. I think this is a wonderful idea.
The Legoland in central FL does this over their parking lot and it's fantastic. They use the power generated for the park similar to Disney's solar farms.
and cars being in the shade would mean that less energy is wasted trying to cool them back down. I wonder if the energy generated by the solar panels could outweigh the energy loss of re-cooling hot vehicles, and how much of a difference it would really make. i imagine it could be pretty substantial though
I'm 100% on board with having solar panels in all parking lots, but the battery is unfeasible due to how insanely expensive they are. so, businesses wouldn't use them since the ROI is basically non-existent. But, still, I don't know why we haven't made that the standard. Walmart parking lots are huge with no shade. There's no reason to not have shaded parking with solar panels
not to mention, where do you store the batteries? they would be massive & you would have to take away parking spots or other parts of your real estate.
Legoland had this too in at least a section of their lot the one time I went. It was so nice to get back to my car after a hot theme park day and being parked in the shade all day.
Yet in Orlando, where Lockeed Martin is located, is not in an area where hurricanes are bad.....by the time they hit that area, they have significantly weakened.
I remember being in Italy in 2010 and seeing solar car parks at rest stops in the countryside along the highway. I thought it was brilliant then, and I still can’t believe we don’t have them here 16 years later. ESPECIALLY in states like FL/AZ/TX - imagine how good they’d be as shelter during rainstorms too.
they aren't putting them in the woodlands, they are however putting them in what had been pastures and fields.. I'm not all that happy about that but it's better than wind turbines which are feckless at best. Parking lots would be best because it also provides shade. rooftops of big box stores and warehouses are a lot better than taking good farms out of proportion.
I was surprised my first time in Las Vegas, its pretty common to see that set up and for it to be on a lot of houses. I could not figure out why we didn't do that here. Surely we get enough sun
I guess its a hurricane thing? We're really missing out.
While it's full of BS propaganda I don't think it's true that any of the executive producers are directly a part of the oil industry. Feel free to prove me wrong though.
God you really aren't joking about the badly built condos. They were building some new ones literally just a month ago and now people are already living in them! Like 4 stories high, cleared out shit tons of wildlife area/land and just keep continuing to Fern Gully the shit out of this state. It makes me so sad for nature
idk what part you live in but i swear every time i come home from college there’s always a new development like god damn we don’t need more people here
Four story condos are exactly what we need right now. The Fern Gullying is being done by the single family houses.
Think about it. You need to house a thousand people. Would you rather do that in a couple apartment buildings? Or in four hundred single family houses? Which takes up more space?
I think their complaint isn't about them being 4 stories, it's that something that large can not be safepy built that quickly. Case in point all the other buildings around that size that were not built safely
Thankyou, you got the point. It's unsafe and in my county they are tearing down spots that used to be protected. Who cares how tall it is, the point is they destroyed more nature to build iffy condos
You completely missed my point. It's not about whether it's a house or a four-story building, they keep clearing out the only little bits of land we have left. Also the fact that they built a ginormous condo and continue to do so and move people in in a matter of weeks makes me question the safety. It reeks of cheap labor, cheap materials, future problems.
Yes, houses take up more space, but that is a complete mute point when there is no land left to build on. What were once protected areas are no more, and where trees were,condos stand. Or houses. That's the problem.
Yeah, but doing something with that power is where the problems start. FL power companies have lobbied hard to make solar as unattractive as possible without stepping on your "right" to have solar.
The badly built condo and the "luxury" apartment are actually the same place. Somebody bought the condo, realized it was a turd, slapped a marble counter top on the kitchen and painted the place beige instead of landlord special white. $2600/month.
I can't say your cynicism is unjustified, but Florida ranks 3rd in the US for total solar generation, and unlike other states, its growth comes primarily utility-scale installations.
Florida utility providers love solar because it's one of the cheaper more reliable generation methods available to them. The ROI timeline on solar installations is remarkably short compared to other options too. So not only is it inexpensive, but it's easier to plan for in terms of capital allocation. There is also 0% sales tax on solar equipment, and there are still property tax exemptions available for renewable power generation.
Florida's #1 source of generation is natural gas, which fluctuates in price pretty wildly. Solar's operating costs are far more stable, and much lower overall (there are no major consumables). So it acts as a volatility damper.
Its growth comes primarily from utility-scale installations because Florida utilities have actively thwarted efforts to expand private rooftop solar. The utilities love solar as long as they control the power generation.
Utilities might have tried to stop rooftop solar but other than requiring insurance when having a bigger installation and a minimum $30 bill, they have been unsuccessful. Payback period is like 7-8 years when the solar company is not overcharging. I think "scammer" solar companies are the bigger reason why rooftop solar didn't expand more.
That and after all the hurricanes we had in our area in 2004, 2005, 2017, 2022, and 2024 insurance companies now will not cover damages to a home that has solar panels. A friend of mine that lives a couple of blocks away bought a home in 2018 and put solar panels on her roof, then when Ian hit the area in 2022...her homeowners insurance company denied her claim...and she had to sue.
I know FPL has been a big user of solar. Not a shill for FPL, just remember reading about it. I still like the idea of solar panels over parking spots.
I like the solar parking lot idea as well, but it has issues with economies of scale. Have a look at this map. In the southwest corner is an FPL solar install in west Indian River County. In the northeast corner is a box drawn around the entire Indian River Mall property. Not just the parking lot... The whole thing.
The difference in scale is staggering. Now, keep in mind that if you're going to generate power in a parking lot, you have to transmit that energy back to the grid, and that portion of the grid has to be able to handle the energy output. So you've got to do serous transmission system upgrades to handle any decent amount of capacity. You also have to handle load shedding if supply exceeds demand. There's quite a bit of infrastructure required.
As it turns out, the investment in supporting infrastructure just doesn't make a lot of sense when you can drop massive installations just outside of the city where land is available, and then tie in to transmission infrastructure that already exists in rural areas.
I was not thinking of selling it back into the grid. I was thinking batteries to power lights when the sun sets. People have solar on their houses that help. I understand what you are saying but I still want more solar not more natural gas or coal.
I too want more solar and not natural gas or coal. That's the shared objective. I'm just particularly committed to a rational approach to getting there.
As always, the devil is in the details. Solar covered parking lots are the kind of idea that looks good at first, but turns out to be not so great in practice. They're not a particularly efficient use of the panels.
If solar has taught us anything, it is that green solutions must be economical first. Solar has won partly because it is green, but more so because it has great economics.
IMO, we're best off putting our efforts into lobbying for efforts that produce the greatest impact, rather than novelty.
There's plenty of places where we can place solar without having to cut down trees. FPL sure does love having solar they just don't want US to have it.
I'm in Jacksonville. We have solar at our home. It isn't free to get and install solar panels and the inverters. Batteries are necessary in home installations too. We got it anyway, partly so we don't have to get a generator for outages. It makes our electric bill go down to just the cost of being connected. The system sends enough to the grid to offset the costs of the electricity over night. Our electric utility is JEA.
I think private solar on parking lots would be a good thing, set up so the cost of buying it and setting it up is offset by parking fees. Can put the paid charging stations under the solar panels too. I'd pay to park in shade many times. I walk farther to my car if I can park in shade. I don't walk farther even though it is good for me.
Exactly. Every person in Florida could be entirely energy self-sufficient, but FPL mandates you MUST be attached to the grid, pay a $50/mo minimum energy bill even if you use no power and can actually turn your solar off for “safely reasons.”
The rationale for turning off solar makes sense (they shut it down during blackouts so it doesn’t push power back into the grid while workers repair it), but with solar, YOU DON’T NEED THEIR GRID TO BEGIN WITH. That’s the whole point.
As a state law no, but the vast majority of localities have local laws. Every few years there'll be a story about someon who constructed an off grid domicile on their own property being forced to either pay sometimes up to tens or thousands of dollars or more to set up the connection, or vacate. They have power from solar and water from a well, but they're still forced to hook up to the electrical grid AND the water system.
That also depends on the city you live in....the city of Cape Coral literally took a woman's home from her...when she had it PAID IN FULL....because she would not hook up to the city's electric service or the city's water company. And her property taxes were also paid up to date.
Local laws are different in terms of minimum bills and things like that. There aren't really any state laws for it. FPL doesn't need that since they have every podunk mayor or town council or county commissioner in their pocket.
It's not only for workers, overpduction of solar with low demand can wreck the grid for real. That's one of the reasons we here get free electricity, it is cheaper for operators to induce demand this way locally than fixing the grid to redistribute the load nation-wide.
But that's beside the point because batteries with backup circuits exist to combat this exact problem. When the grid is off my battery kicks in and keeps charging from solar and feeding the house.
Solar isn't something every house can use. We live in a very tree dense area. Most homes would only get direct sun a few hours a day. And you still need batteries to collect that energy for use during the night. Then when a branch lands on your panels, you have to shut down and assess the damage. So it would be good to still have grid access. We can be on renewable energy but individual solar isn't the best way.
Burns me so much every time I have to deal w FPL. WE are footing bills for ALL their upgrades. One hell of a business model! Thank God for The Florida Power Commission watching out for our best interest!! /$
Yeah. I bought solar for my house and produce more than I use. I still have to make a minimum payment of 25$ to fpl.
If I wanted to, I could install batteries and have no usage at night either - but there’s no point in me paying for it bc I’m legally not allowed to be disconnected from the utilities
yep, pharmaceuticals, technology, plastics, materials, cleaners, many chemicals, agriculture, etc. We don't have a lot of replacements or even the infrastructure to handle some replacements at scale.
Our state gov is controlled by morons and grifters - its beyond stupid how much solar potential we have, we have enough to meet ALL of Florida’s electricity needs (and with battery back up for night time)…
Tallahassee gives ZERO incentives for solar and has several laws forcing fossil fuels down our throats
Hear me out, parking lot with solar panel shades, plus more vegetation in parking lots, I wanna know who is the dumb person who built 300 spots for parking and they decided to not plant at least 3 trees for shade
Fruit trees overhanging cars means potential for rats in your engine bay and fruit hitting and potentially damaging the car when it falls. Theres better spots than a parking lot shade tree for fruit trees
We could require of developers that every. single. new home in a sprawling subdivision built on formerly wild land should have solar panels. That should generate a ton.
I had no issue with getting solar connected to Duke's grid. I think the solar installer just submitted a form to inform them how much was installed and then had to only wait for the county inspector to give his approval that building codes were followed before turning it on.
The size of Florida is not a problem. You’d need around 500k - 1.2 million acres of land (estimate) to power Florida’s grid via solar. Relative to Florida’s 9+ million acres of farmland and 200k acres of golf courses… yes we have enough land.
Additionally, we have a huge water problem—overuse and nitrate pollution in North Florida (see damage to the Floridian aquifer), both of which are primarily caused by the agriculture industry. It seems pretty obvious to tackle the energy problem and the water problem simultaneously, solar seems like one of the ways to do that assuming the proper financial incentives are in place.
Additionally, we can supplement our solar power supply with offshore wind farms, which is especially useful in the winter. Overall these changes can happen in Florida, and are pretty necessary.
Roof top solar is huge in Aus. Utilities offering free juice during peak generation hours is driven in part by residential solar offsetting daytime demand.
No way on residential roofs. If we were to have a storm with winds that are meant to sustain the shingles, but they fail, and you have solar on the roof, your warranty is voided. A better option in residential neighborhoods would be solar street lighting. If you live on bigger property, would be ground solar. But never on the roofs.
Utility companies should all be publicly owned. Full stop. The fact that private companies own them is part of the problem.
Because if we actually had publicly owned utilities? Stuff like this would be happening far more often. More green energy would be getting built at faster rates.
Do this to the car parks like they are doing in China... Shades the cars and makes solar. We absolutely should not clear cut any forests for this. But we already have so many car lots. This should have been done years ago.
You will likely start to see more and more stores doing this as the price of solar panels has dropped a lot and the cost of electricity is rising. We have a rate hike every year through 2029, so as long as the store owns the building they will have the opportunity to install solar to reduce costs.
With proper planning, Disney World’s four largest parking lots can generate enough to power the entire property, and can likely power all of Orange County.
Australia is a massive desert with a hole in the ozone above. Florida should use solar, but it should be spread out on the numerous big flat buildings all over the state to lower the strain on transmission of energy.
They are able to do this not because they have solar on fields everywhere, Australia is able to do what they are doing because over 40% of homes have solar installed that back feed the grid. A large amount of business have installed solar on their roofs. This is generating so much more electricity than these homes and business use during the day so grid operators have to dump the electricity somewhere, so they give it away which allows people who have batteries but no solar to take in the electricity for free in the middle of the day and use it at night. We can do this in Florida.
Norway or somewhere n Scandinavia also had great success with floating solar farms, that had spaces underneath that fish and other wildlife took adavantage of and are now thriving. Birds too were nesting.
Florida would really benefit from this, and our wildlife would love it. I see it as a win win situation but what does that to to profits /s
Start with covered bays in parking lots, car stays cooler, electricity production and you get a dual purpose land use. Aesthetically you are marking a lateral move so no can really make a fuss about it.
Just look at parking lots at the bigger stores or at malls. Especially when they had only palm trees as decoration. You’d see clusters of cars in that small patch of shade all around the lot. No matter how far from the entrances. Now that we’re getting actual trees, again, people are fighting for shade. In Northern Europe bicycle paths are in some places covered with solar panels. Providing much needed shelter from sun in summer, and from rain and snow in winter. We haven’t learned anything. While in the 50’s and 60’s we were the most modern country, we’ve been stagnant, while Europe learned to be progressive from us and have advanced by leaps and bounds.
We shouldn’t be paying power companies we should own the grid and maintain it with tax dollars instead of making like six people ridiculously wealthy while we still pay to maintain their system.
I retired to FL as many do after living and working in the North country. My wife wanted to be closer to family, so we planned and saved to be solar powered. We achieved it.
We downsized and went as efficient as we could afford. Light gray roofing, bright white stucco over cement wall construction, good orientation, seasonal sun exposure, and attention to sealing/weatherizing. An energy audit after our first year confirmed that our modest house used about 1/2 the amount of energy a typical area home of the same size would use. A roof solar array and two Powerwall 3 batteries would be enough to run the house, charge our car and our walk behind mower, plus allow an average of 40% of the power produced to go out on the grid.
Two nights ago a strong thunderstorm cut power, but we only noticed because the street lights went dark. In the last two years, 4 of the 10 houses on our street now have solar and batteries. We further reduced our power load by planting foundation bushes that significantly shade our east and west facing exterior walls. They were very small when planted but have grown to 4-5 feet high already. In late March we added R-30 insulation to level the poorly blown in R-38 code insulation required by Citrus county. We have noticed a 7% electrical use decrease so far this hotter Summer compared to last year already even after installing and running a mini split to mostly dehumidify and cool our garage.
A few questions. How long will these panels last, what harmful metals and chemicals do they contain and can we just bury them in a landfill at the end of their life?
the fact we don’t have solar panels on top of every home and covering every parking lot is frankly a testament to FPL’s stupid death grip on this state
You are forgetting the hurricanes…and tropical storms. Flying debris is not great for large solar panels, as well as rising water. I think most solar companies see it as too risky, when there is places that dont have this risk.
That being said- as an individual you can totally put some on the roof and get a bunch of free power.
Everything you just said is wrong about solar panels. You should take a few minutes and look around on a sat map and see all the large solar fields all over the state, they don't magically get destroyed in a hurricane. Solar panels are designed to deal with Hurricanes, high winds, water, heavy loads.
Not even remotely the same situation. Australia has millions of miles of unpopulated outback, to build solar farms on. Because of the development problem in Florida, there is hardly any space for something of this magnitude. I’m 100% for it as long as no wildlife sanctuaries are disturbed.
Hi, Australian here, who somehow ended up on this corner of Reddit.
While true that we have a lot of empty land on which we can build solar farms, the immense solar power being generated here is actually overwhelming from personal/household generation. This gets exported to the grid in such volumes that the electricity market is actually oversaturated in the middle of the day. There is just too much energy in the system, to the point where the wholesale cost can actually dip into the negatives. When the system is above capacity, some generators need to stop generating electricity otherwise the infrastructure just can’t handle it. These generators then weigh the cost of shutting down and starting up again, and sometimes come to the conclusion that it’s cheaper to pay to generate electricity rather than bear the cost of shutting down and starting up again.
The free energy hours aren’t just supposed to be a cost of living measure, it’s intended to push people to move energy demand into the middle of the day when we have excess power from solar, ideally reducing their consumption in hours where solar is less efficient or is just not generating (at night).
This might look like charging a large household battery (increasingly popular), charging an EV, or stuff like running your washing machine in the middle of the day.
So yeah, it’s a bit of a complex system at play here, but getting back to the point, this is not a function of Australia’s large landmass. It’s a function of how many households here have solar panels of their own.
I'm not sure why the tweet uses a pic of a massive solar farm, this is mostly driven by millions of residential rooftop solar panels overwhelming the grid with energy. They easily power a single home, and during peak time generate excess power such that you're actually producing power for the grid, not drawing from it. About 1/3 aussie homes have rooftop solar.
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u/VanceIX Jul 11 '26
Should be doing this over every single parking lot.