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points by prawn 3 days ago | 0 comments
How common is it that these industrial/commercial buildings have roof-top solar? If not common, what stops it?

It's quite common in Australia for commercial and residential.

[–] footydude 2 days ago
> How common is it that these industrial/commercial buildings have roof-top solar? If not common, what stops it?

One factor is weight - a lot of low-cost industrial units may well need modifications to the roof to strengthen them to be able to take the additional weight of solar panels.

Certainly where I work (science research facility in the UK) our business has only been able to install roof-top solar on a comparatively small proportion of our total roof space because a large amount of the seemingly viable space would require substantial works to make the roof strong enough for solar.

[–] kulahan 2 days ago
In the US, there is a slowly-growing trend of covering parking lots with solar panels, rather than buildings. You can put up very cheap i-beans + corrugated metal structures with the added benefit of shading cars. It doesn't work everywhere, but in sunny - and especially dry - regions, it's great.

edit: I could see this working well in AUS and USA because we've got lots of space and sun. Might be harder in Europe and northern Asian regions

[–] acdha 2 days ago
It’s becoming common but the current administration has been highly committed to preventing that because it cuts into their fossil fuel donors’ business.
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