Energy Secretary Ed Miliband wants to turn car parks into ‘solar carports’.
Under plans considered by the government, UK car parks for supermarkets, shopping centres and more could be required to install solar panels. Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero wants to consider making commercial solar panels mandatory for new car parks. The department also wants to explore extending this to existing parking lots.
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Energy Secretary Mr Miliband said: “Right now, the sun is shining on hundreds of thousands of car parking spaces across the country which could be used to power our homes and businesses. We want to work with businesses and car park operators to turn our car parks into solar carports to save families and businesses money with clean, homegrown British energy.”
Britain could unlock up to 13GW of solar capacity without taking up new land for solar farms, and this solar capacity is enough to power millions of homes. Around £28,000 per year in electricity bills could be saved by car parks by installing solar carports, based on an 80-space car park.
France and the United States have already implemented solar car parks. This proposal from Ed Miliband has taken inspiration from the success these countries have had. In France, laws were introduced two years ago that required large car parks to install solar panels.
