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MotorTrend reports https://www.motortrend.com/news/kia-plant-solar-power-hail-protection that the Kia assembly plant in Georgia suffered very expensive hail damage to new cars waiting to be shipped, back in a storm in 2023. The fix is a massive raised solar array of 3.2 million square feet (300,000 meters^2) over the car park/storage area.
The system has about 17,000 solar panels on the columns of a structure that is large enough to protect about 15,000 vehicles from the elements until they are loaded onto trucks or rail cars for delivery. Hail damage costs billions of dollars a year.
The panels are not all connected yet. Construction began in 2024 and the goal was to be done in the first quarter of 2026 but panels are still being installed. It should be finished this spring.
VPS [Vehicle Protection Structures] has provided this kind of protection to dealerships, but this is the first large-scale execution for an assembly plant.
The partnership is also working with Georgia Power to optimize energy production and integrate the power generated by the solar panels into the plant. The panels will be capable of supplying 10 percent of the plant's energy needs. The project also provided credits under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act until that act was terminated.
Pics at the link, sort of like large "pop-up" shelters. To your AC submitter it's quite attractive.
Insuring the solar panels for hail damage seems like it would be cheaper than insurance to cover the same area of cars.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday March 03, @08:25AM (5 children)
It's an overlooked facet of solar panels that they are large, flat, light structures.
This means they're ideal for rain-cover, for covering canals (to prevent evaporation, etc.), roadways, even your patio. Why is the roof of your conservatory not just solar panels? They're cheap enough now.
They can function as fences, as roofs, as wall panels, provide shade for animals, etc.
And every fuelling station could have them instead of those huge covers they have purely to... protect drivers from rain for the 5 minutes it takes to fuel your car. Barns, sheds, ... Any flat surface could be a solar panel.
And they will protect (to some extent) whatever is underneath them. I have an old roof and I started putting my own solar panels on and now I'm actually more confident that the roof will stay there for longer. I don't get moss on it any more wherever I've put a panel (and the panels don't get moss at all). And it's a layer against rain, sleet, snow, hail, even intense sunshine heating and cracking the old tiles.
Honestly, I don't get why everything isn't just a solar panel nowadays. I'm adding them to my porch walls, I'm putting them over my fence panels (I would love to replace my fence panels with them, but the sizing is all off for the existing posts), I'm putting them on my shed roof, and I'm putting them on my house.
It's a tiny, tiny, house (60 sq m!) but damn... I'm already going to need another solar controller as it is, let alone by the time I'm finished. And the panels I'm using are literally cheaper than fence panels, etc.
I would say that having solar panels on a roof will easily buy me another 10-20 years of roof life. And having a "glass" fence would be far better than some rickety old wooden shite that constantly goes grey in the sun and needs fixing.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday March 03, @02:16PM (4 children)
For those of us with sloping roofs, solar panels are not cost efficient on north facing surfaces.
In another direction, fake tiles that generate power is a nice idea:
https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/roof-tiles [theecoexperts.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday March 03, @10:47PM
The issue isn't the price of the panels, that's negligible. I just looked up the prices for tiles (after I looked at current panel prices two postings ago). Ordinary roof tiles, basic red from a common vendors, run around 20€/m^2, a bit more posh ones come at 32€/m^2. The panels are 35€/m^2. For 100m^2 roof, the extra cost for the material is between 300 and 1500€. Even if they run at 10% peak, they will pay for themselves in months rather than years.
However, installation and especially sealing is a bitch with what's available. You'd probably need specific rubber profiles both for horizontal and vertical gaps, and decent fitting panels for the edges. Nothing that can't be solved, but once that has happened, roof tile manufacturers will run lobby campaigns how helpless children will cruelly burn to death because, er, electricity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 04, @12:20AM (2 children)
For half of this globe, on the contrary, north facing solar panels are more efficient than the opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04, @12:25AM
> For half of this globe
Sorry, you and your country are inverted, not much anyone can do about it... Being butt hurt won't really help the matter.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday March 04, @09:30AM
Thanks and good point.