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Summary
The idea of putting such power generation infrastructure in urban spaces is an appealing alternative to using farmland. But it distracts us from the challenge of decarbonizing an economy and the hard trade-offs that come with it.
If only we could get reliable, cheap, clean energy without annoying anyone anywhere. South Korea and France think they have the solution. But don’t get too excited about it. The idea is to put our new power generation infrastructure in places that we already dislike. Car parks seem like the perfect solution.
The government of President Lee Jae Myung promises to make erecting solar panels on parking lots a central plank of its plan to reduce South Korea’s dependence on imported fossil fuels—a troubling vulnerability after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Since November, all but the smallest public parking lots have been ordered to install canopies to provide shade for vehicles plus generation for the grid. That is a key part of his proposal to build 44.2GWof solar on urban land, plus another 12GW on utility-scale sites, by 2030.
France’s policy is even more ambitious. By the end of this month, both public and private large lots are required to cover at least 50% of their parking area with panels. Mid-sized sites will follow in the next two years. That will ultimately provide an estimated 11GW of generation, equivalent at midday to the output of 10 nuclear reactors.
It is a model that could be exported worldwide, with huge benefits. America’s surface parking lots cover about 36,000 sq. km, and a French-style mandate could generate as much electricity as is consumed in the US, and then some.
What’s not to like? The problem is the same as the benefit: Solar parking lots are so superficially appealing that they can blind people to how inadequate they are for the scale of the challenge.
While they can help at the margin, a wholesale switch to cleaner energy is will involve tough trade-offs, now and in the future.
Pretending that is not the case will only entrench existing polluting fuels. In dropping its plans for a similar programme last month, the UK government made the right decision.
Consider Korea’s 44.2GW target. That is about 10 times more rooftop solar than what is presently installed, and would represent a remarkably high share of its crowded urban area—almost double the density of panels seen in the Netherlands, the world leader. Getting there by 2030 would also mean connecting new solar at almost three times 2025’s record pace.
All that is plausible—but only just. The problem comes when you start looking beyond 2030. The rise of electric vehicles, data centres, heat pumps and chip fabs means that Seoul now expects power demand in 2040 to be about 70TWh higher than its previous forecasts. That is enough on its own to suck up all the generation from current urban solar plans.
If the country wants to start reducing its fossil fuel demand rather than holding it steady, it will need to find yet more sites—but with its population already in decline, its cities are not getting any bigger.
The obvious candidate is farmland. And that is the nub of the problem. The two countries where solar car-park policies are most advanced are ones that attach an almost spiritual value to the sanctity of their rural land. Promising to put modules on parking lots can be a way of avoiding the thornier question of whether more of them should be put on farmers’ fields as well.
That ignores the fact that the countryside has never been an unchanging landscape.
As a child growing up in southern England in the 1980s and 1990s, my image of pastoral idyll was a bright-yellow expanse of rapeseed or canola. But that crop was rarely seen until the 1970s, when Canada developed a strain that could be used for cooking oil, and parasites and warm winters have meant it has all but disappeared over the past decade.
Owners of farmland typically would like the freedom to harvest whatever commodity is most profitable—whether rice, wheat or solar electricity. Planning roadblocks to photovoltaic projects, for all they are framed as being in the interests of agriculture, typically come from neighbours, activists and politicians who aren’t farmers themselves.
It would be great if urban solar could fix these dilemmas. But there is not enough suitable land to make such generation more than a small slice of the total, given the problems of shading, small sites, existing infrastructure and maintenance challenges. Rooftop solar also typically costs 50% more than the utility-scale variety, removing the advantage that makes switching to renewables attractive in the first place.
Solar parking lots suggest that an energy transition can be achieved in a modern industrial society simply by plastering our existing built-up areas with generators. That is a false promise.
By all means, slap a solar canopy on your car park. Just don’t let it distract you from the far bigger task of decarbonization that lies ahead. ©Bloomberg
The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy.
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