Mastodawn

bovaz May 28

@sundew @cmconseils yeah, agrivoltaics is a thing. Both with panels over crops, as well as over pastures.
Replacing farmlands with solar farms is a separate issue.

Kichae May 28

[email protected] Not really. A large chunk of farmlands are actually dedicated to energy production. Just because it looks like food doesn’t mean anyone’s going to eat it.

bovaz May 28

@[email protected] You mean biogas/biofuel and stuff like that?
I don't know the percentages, and I'm sure they vary a lot by region.

/usr/people/flexion May 28

@cmconseils ..and then eliminate cars and replace with sheep and cows ❤️ 🐑 🐮

Bob Thomson May 28

@cmconseils not sure about elsewhere but locally I see a lot of both so far. The one that always gets me is CHU Poitiers which has a huge amount of car park land but no panels yet. Seems daft for public hospitals not to be all over this.

@cmconseils why tf would they even cover fields outside of having a nice background for the photoshoot? It makes a lot more sense to cover up parking lots or buildings.

@reiddragon @cmconseils no, it works on fields too, depending on what you're growing. it can increase yields (and sheep and pigs benefit from the shade)

@fishidwardrobe @cmconseils You'll need to explain how it would increase yields

https://beige.party/@sundew/116651463130288006

@reiddragon @cmconseils i really don't. i'm not the one making the claim, i'm just reporting that others have made it credibly.

but, here you go, someone else responding linked to two articles. did you see that?

Sundew (@[email protected])

@[email protected] I'm all for covering car parks with solar panels, but in some cases mixing solar with crops seems to actually _help_ crop yields! eg: https://www.euro-inox.org/solar-powered-smart-farming-how-agrivoltaics-boost-crop-yields/ https://commongoodnews.org/inspiring/highlight-of-the-week-significant-good-news/

beige.party

@fishidwardrobe @cmconseils

> i really don't. i'm not the one making the claim, i'm just reporting that others have made it credibly.

The way you made the initial claim didn't state "someone else made this claim and I'm echoing that, make of that what you will". You stated it as fact so yes, you *do* need to explain it if it's unclear to your interlocutor how it works.

@reiddragon @cmconseils i'm not doing your homework for you, mate. i don't owe you anything.

@fishidwardrobe @cmconseils maybe don't get involved in a conversation if right after you decide you don't feel like actually engaging

asshole

@reiddragon @cmconseils did you read the two articles? asshole?

@cmconseils weird how he was picking on me and ignoring all the other replies that said the same thing. oh well. blockity blockity block.

SecondUniverse (she/her/they)May 28

@cmconseils There are plenty of studies showing solar fields can be agriculturally productive and/or great for local biodiversity.

The USA for example devotes significant acreage to corn monoculture for biofuels. If those fields were solar installations, the power generated would cover the USA's needs many times over, while also providing a habitat for wildflowers, bees, and nature in general.

Olivia Vespera May 28

@cmconseils I don't have to add to the chorus of others who've said the same. Cover our carpakrs and buildings indeed.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE May 28

@cmconseils You gotta have LOTS of spare land to waste to have car parks that look like that. Obvs multistorey car parks have less space for solar panels.

Ben S.May 28

@TimWardCam @cmconseils these are common in the US suburbs. We call them strip malls.

As for the OP: It's wild to me that we aren't requiring solar for all new construction in 2026.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE May 28

@HunterZ @cmconseils Yes, we haven't had land to waste like that in Europe for a thousand years or so.

Ben S.May 28

@TimWardCam @cmconseils I think a lot of the car discourse on here fails to account for this difference.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE May 28

@HunterZ @cmconseils I worked in the smart street lighting business for a while and was mildly astonished to find that 50% of the "street lights" in the USA aren't in streets at all but in car parks.

Ben S.May 28

@TimWardCam @cmconseils sadly this doesn't surprise me, especially since roads are no exception to our public services funding allergy.

@cmconseils #agrivoltaics

EvoScale May 28

CelloMom On Cars May 28

@EvoScale @cmconseils

Agrivoltaics is a Thing!
Turns ordinary sheep into solarpunk grazers (happy sheep yield more wool).

Lots of other success stories here:
https://mastodon.social/@CelloMomOnCars/112020795068005590

Also:
A car park should have just a few spaces, all with EV chargers, and all reserved for disabled drivers. And a bus stop. Sure, put solar over those parking spots.

Sjaak K. 🇳🇱🇪🇺🍋May 28

@cmconseils
Cover the roofs.
And stop making car based societies.

Fun Weirdo May 28

@cmconseils that's a win win

Russell May 28

@cmconseils Abolish parking lots, cover (some) fields.

Parking lots are a waste of space even when doubling as solar panels. Can you imagine how many residential units could be built in that huge empty space? How many more shops could be included? And where's the green spaces and third places for people to gather or rest in?

calcius May 28

@cmconseils
While Iran is on going take the chance to ration fossil fule use and :

- add surcharges to businesses that encourage personal vehicle use
- add a per vehicle timesed by cost of vehicle make surcharge. This would include luxury hotels, resorts and airports

invest the money raised in projects using renewables and/or encouraging pedestrian business.

whitehattux May 28

@cmconseils Get rid of the car parks and build trams.
With the field space that frees up from growing "biodiesel" build as many solar farms as you want. The rest of the leftover field space use for food.

theNextUsername May 28

@cmconseils Consider that many of the cornfields we currently have are used to produce ethanol to add to fuels. Replacing one type of fuel for another seems like a fair trade to me. In addition, a car park solar installation requires taller, reinforced poles to raise them above the cars parking below. It makes sense to utilize these spaces where there are not any rooftops or fields around, but rooftops and fields are generally a less expensive place to start.

Merry Christmas May 28

It's an idea

Flipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈🌹May 28

@cmconseils Cover the fields. Get rid of the carparks. Turn them into fields.

Then cover them.

Estarriol, Terrorist Dragon May 28

And the roofs of shopping malls, Diy stores, warehouses....

MidgePhoto May 28

@cmconseils car parking adjacent to high voltage substations is rather limited, and where they are only moderately separated the route to run a substantial cable tends to be through shops, offices, homes, and roads. Rather than across a field or three.

The shade is certainly welcome, eg in France, (and the shelter from rain in England) but the production of electricity is more in scale with the shops and light industry than the Grid.

Meanwhile, our crops are dried out and appreciate shelter.

Justin Derrick May 29

@Photo55 @cmconseils Car parking is usually adjacent to sites where there is a large consumption of electricity -- office buildings, shopping malls, stadiums, commuter rail stations. Which are unsurprisingly also places where grid connections are in the multi-megawatt range.

My old office building (a 140 year old brick-and-beam structure) had a 5MW connection to the grid, but generally used far less (2-3MW), except on the coldest winter days when all of the electric heaters were on. The rest of the time they would have the capacity to either offset their usage or feed back several MW of power with no changes to the local grid.

MidgePhoto May 29

@JustinDerrick @cmconseils 3MW isn't a large consumption of electricity.
2MW fed into the 3-phase local distribution network at 400V, and 3MW made available by not being drawn would be nice, yes.

Derril Water in the North of this county generates 42MWp and feeds it into the 400kV Grid connection. And as far as generators go, that's small. (Also constrained along with a lot else, since the substation is half-broken this month, chiz!)

Think GW scale

MidgePhoto May 29

@JustinDerrick @cmconseils the other thing is the size of roof. Above the atmosphere we get 1kW per sq metre.
Down here it is attenuated to half that on a good day, with 25% conversion. 250W/mm
So how many square metres are you offering, please?

Santiago 🌸May 28

@cmconseils that picture is most likely a monocrop field used for bio fuel. it is way better used covered by panels.

Santiago 🌸May 28

@cmconseils honestly this just reads as a car lobby talking points.

keep burning bio fuel! add more parking spaces with some greenwashing to show we care!

let’s put green spaces in the city instead of huge parkings. there is plenty space for solar panels already.

Bunny Jane's Humansona May 28

@cmconseils We should cover parking lots with solar panels but there aren't enough parking lots to power a country with them.

This just looks like fossil fuel propoganda, preying on people's misunderstandings about what the words "solar farm" means and trying to stoke fear. Trying to frame it as a choice between starvation and pollution.

Solar farms are built on fields that are not being used for growing food, unless it's a kind of food that grows better in shade.

ARGVMI~1.PIF May 28

Right? Keep cars cool and generate electricity at the same time. I see literally no downside to covering car parks like that.

Although this won't work for parking garages with rooftop parking. Not unless there are solar panels that can survive cars driving on them, anyway.

As for covering fields in solar panels, that's not necessarily a bad idea either. Some plants want shade. Solar panels can provide it.

LionelB May 28

Covering fields with solar arrays makes farming and conservation sense. The key point is the area beneath the panels should either be farmed as agrivoltaics or be maintained as a protected wildlife area. Shade is an important aid to biodiversity. Approvals should be appropriately conditioned.

Golf courses are far more extensive and a biodiversity desert.

Deborah Rose ❌👑May 28

@cmconseils California has been aggressively expanding the use of "solar canopies" or "solar carports" to cover car parks for a number of years. California is also pioneering a dual-purpose strategy to stretch its water supply. By building solar canopies over major irrigation networks—such as the federally backed Project Nexus in the Central Valley farming communities. #Agrivoltaics

Rob Fahrni May 28

@DebErupts @cmconseils YES! I thought it was clever the first time I saw one at a school. Dual purpose! Provides shade for the cars -- the San Joaquin Valley of California is about as hot as the Sun in the summer -- and provides electricity! Win-win! 🥳

Pomegranate_Stew May 28

@fahrni @DebErupts @cmconseils
And then you get the whiners here that complain that they took out 5 parking spaces to put them in over one of the universities in their employee lot.

Oh no! Carpool? Take the bus? The bus line goes right past the school.

E: I swear I speak English. I have no idea what’s going on in the first paragraph. 🤦‍♀️

Deborah Rose ❌👑May 28

@pomegranate_stew @fahrni @cmconseils You can't please everyone. And if farmers want to utilize solar or lease their land for solar, it's their right. Farmers are hurting due to Trump tariffs and policies.

Kevin Ashworth May 28

@cmconseils
Yes!
Also this: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-panel-covered-canals-have-their-day-sun-california

Solar-panel-covered canals have their day in the sun in California

California’s first solar-over-canal project goes online with the commissioning of the narrow and wide span arrays in the Turlock Irrigation District, bringing to life the ultimate “why didn’t I think of that!” idea.

University of California

Baloo Uriza May 28

@cmconseils These go great over cycleways, particularly in sun-belt cities with long dedicated bike highways. Like Tulsa.

Basically I'm tilting at the ether for Tulsa to cover the crosstown cycleways in solar panels so they're not such a gruelling slog when you do need to use most of their length

https://www.ideasforchange.org/tulsa

jollyrogue May 28

@BalooUriza Tulsa launched Ideas for Change after Tulsa Decides already did the thing. Your guess is as good as mine if anything will happen with the proposals. First guess, it’s a convenient place to punt people to so City Hall doesn’t have to do anything, like change.org in general.

http://tulsadecides.org/

Ideas for Change in Tulsa

Share ideas for change in your community, and vote on the ideas of others

Ideas for Change

Baloo Uriza May 28

@jollyrogue Looks like Tulsa Decides is the city website and IfC is the change.org one

jollyrogue May 28

@BalooUriza IfC is the official one, and it’s a branded instance of change.org.

Tulsa Decides is a citizen group unaffiliated with the city.

Subma 🏴🇪🇺 🇺🇦 🇵🇸May 29

@cmconseils Et bien disons que les voitures sont plus présentes dans les villes que dans les campagnes... Et qu'avec l'augmentation du nombre de voitures électriques il est peut être plus judicieux de créer de l'électricité au moment où les voitures sont stationnées, pour permettre la recharge. Directement du producteur au consommateur, en générant moins de câbles et de structures d'acheminement...

Jack's Countless Lack of Cool May 29

@cmconseils And our waterways! (at least the smaller ones; the Mississippi or Thames might be a heavier lift than the benefits warrant)

Eva May 29

@cmconseils this is the kind of thing I hate so much... not that its wrong. Yes cover our car parks. Better something than nothing. But like... cover our roofs maybe. Delete cars. Make walkable cities with good public transportation that uses underground tunnels to avoid asphalt heat soaking at all, increase transport efficiency and allow more space for humans to spread out and enjoy our natural environment ; _ ;
Im not mad at the people who want to fix things
I just wish we were allowed (by capitalism) to dream bigger.
I wish everything wasn't so grindingly incremental.
This is not me blaming people for making realistic demands of doing anything wrong. Its just a deep sadness that we are so incredibly wounded, that its the best we can realistically ask for.