Electricity has become one of the most important commodities in the region thanks to demand from datacenters, Iran war and rising utility charges
For decades, the only regular visitors to the Twin Lake Reservoir in Lima, Ohio, were fishers passing hot summer evenings trying to snag a largemouth bass.
But today, it’s a hive of activity.
A team of 12 engineers and construction workers are busily connecting more than 3,400 solar arrays to small, floating docks and distributing them across four acres of the reservoir’s surface water.
The electricity generated by the floating photovoltaics will be used to power a nearby water treatment plant, where electricity-powered pumps run 24 hours a day, year-round.
Why not put solar over parking lots? We have ridiculous minimum parking requirements in the US. Why not lattice them in solar panels and derive energy from them?
France passed a law like that and it should be phasing in now. I wonder how that’s going.
I’m assuming it’s significantly more expensive per Watt to install permanent supports designed to withstand car impacts, and a superstructure that is guaranteed to not collapse for a few decades, than it is to just ancor a few empty barrels in a lake and plop a solar panel on there. And yall need to be getting rid of parking ASAP, not tying more money and energy generation to it.
We can put them over water to keep lakes vibrant and thriving, over parking lots or some uncovered roads to provide shade and generally keep the temperature down, on buildings and warehouses to power entire sections of a city, but oil exists so that’s all blocked by red tape and restrictions.
Now waiting for the inevitable idiot that vandalizes this because they’re brainwashed by fossil fuel interests. We need a word to describe non billionaires that do the biding of the mega corporations against their and humanity’s best interests. I guess class traitor?
Would it be illegal to cover solar panels with dust or mud? Just wondering.
The way I understood it my state has been moving to more solar after being big into wind for awhile. Im really happy we have going toward a nice mix of renewables.
something, something, solar and wind for decades and no one smart enough to invest.
countries like Australia, the home owner produces the entire peak hour needs for their community. early and heavy adoption really made a huge difference there, but in the US people refused to invest into anything new (unless it was made by a techbro like apple) and have stagnated their own needs for decades. medical, electrical, transportation, water, sewage. every area of infrastructure in the US is borderline ancient and no one cares because “it works for now”…
