Parking lots are becoming the new area in solar power. Parking lots are quickly emerging as a new hotspot for solar projects, especially on the East and West Coasts. Thousands of solar panels have been constructed this year over parking lots at government offices in California, a football stadium in Maryland, a zoo in Ohio, and a corporate campus in New Jersey. “You have this huge, massive, underutilized resource in this country—parking lots—and people are starting to figure out it’s the best place to install solar,” says Desmond Wheatley, president and CEO of California-based Envision Solar, a firm that specializes in the development of solar parking installations.

Large-scale parking lots are becoming increasingly popular for solar power because they are wide-open outdoor spaces that cover a large footprint, typically larger than building rooftops. Plus, because the panels are raised 12 to 20 feet (3.6 to 6 m) off the ground, they provide the additional benefit of shade for the cars parked underneath them. Thus, solar parking products and projects often use terms connoting shade, such as “solar trees,” “solar canopies,” “solar shields,” and “solar carports.”

“Solar parking lots are great green opportunities because you can put a roof over them and have the project serve two purposes,” says Margaret Cafarelli, principal of Urban Developments, a California development company specializing in green building practices, and a vice chair of ULI’s Sustainable Development Council. About two-thirds of U.S. solar projects this year have occurred on nonresidential commercial real estate. In parking lots, solar projects are usually constructed in one of two ways: the traditional row after row of raised rectangular strips; or column after column of single pole-mounted panels, resembling a grove of trees. Likewise, project deals are usually structured in one of two ways: a utility company or solar developer installs the solar system and either leases it to the property owner or makes lease payments to the property owner, depending on who uses the electricity.

For property owners, the benefits include lower energy costs on the site, reduced carbon emissions from using less plant-generated electricity, plus the public display of sustainable business practices. Overall, the return on investment for property owners can be in the range of 10 to 15 percent, according to Ryan Park, director of business development for REC Solar, a California-based solar installation firm that has designed parking-lot projects.

Solar parking projects have also been mounted at schools, colleges, apartment buildings, police stations, even a national park (Yosemite in California). Basically, any place with a large lot is a potential candidate. But the industry is still in its infancy and lacking in uniformity, with different states offering different programs and incentives and setting different standards and policies. “Why isn’t everyone doing these parking projects? There are a lot of people who don’t know the options, and it’s easy to be confused,” says Mike Taylor, director of research for the Solar Electric Power Association, an industry advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “It’s still a market in its early stages.”

http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2011/news20111025.aspx

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577619821383361402.html

http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2011/October/SpivakParking