Solar up in the air or on the ground

There was a news item this evening where a midlands hospital was putting a solar farm on a landfill area to support the hospital. Surely better to put up struts and a roof covered in solar panels and create covered parking for the nurses and patients.

I think that All new homes should have solar panels fitted as part of the planning process.
Some years ago they had what looked like ordinary roof tiles in the US but they were each small Solar Panels, not sure what happened about them, I've never seen them since.
better that they are in fields than not at all, but I agree, as long as a roof is able to take the weight, then commercial buildings could be used.

I have seen solar panels on the top of covered parking in the U.S., seems eminently sensible to me.
We have them on our roof. I would be happy to have them on our garage roof too but nowadays the return for selling the excess electricity back to the grid isn’t enough to pay for the installation.

No they shouldn't take up fields, we should be planting trees if not using it for agricultural.
And yes, they should be on roofs.

It makes sense to out panels on top of buildings and not take up ground space.

However, I have passed fields of solar panels with sheep grazing in the spaces between them. There would be room for free-range chickens, too.

Both have their place. Panels on buildings are more difficult to access and hence to maintain. Their weight might mean that the roof isn't strong enough to support them. There's no issue with using land that isn't being used for anything else. Solar farms are much easier than traditional energy sources to decommission and move.

I agree with you Lauranorder. Anywhere we can find.

Totally agree.
There must be acres of space on trading estates alone, they look hideous on the ground, and take up space which should be used more productively.

Solar farms are beautiful. Like wind turbines.

What could be more productive than finding sources to replace fossil fuel energy generation?

Opinions may differ.

Tesla, and probably others, have developed photovoltaic roof slates. We looked at them for our renovation but they are prohibitively expensive.
A government backed initiative to drive down prices of this sort of thing would help the environment.

We need far more of them, especially on new builds. We have plenty of room for them on the ground as well. Not all land is suitable for agriculture. Yes, there should be planning legislation to include them wherever possible.

I agree Hetty that not all land is suitable for agriculture but we do need green spaces, parking areas and playgrounds. Surely we can find a way to raise the photovoltaic panels so that we can have both. Covered play areas, covered parking, especially around hospitals would be great.

Yes Alegrias, I too love wind turbines, especially out at sea where they often look like a beautifully choreographed ballet when all turning together.

Wind turbines are beautiful to look at, but people who live close to them say they are quite noisy.

I have lived near to wind turbines, never noticed noise but have noticed a drop in temperature when all turning at once.

I'm really torn with this LauraNorder. It has set MrM and myself talking about it. He's lived off grid here in Cornwall for nearly 40 years.

My answer would be yes - roofs where possible but there are constrictions about where solar panels can go.

We are surrounded by woodland (ours). Our panels are ground mounted and sited by the power house (batteries) for one reason. The panels must face south and our little cottage/workplace doesn't have a south facing roof. We are now building a home here for our old age (we're both in our 70s). The cottage is something like out of Poldark! We both see renewables as the way forward so our build faces south and will harness the sun's thermal qualities in a variety of ways. If we didn't already have our PV, the panels would be on the roof but they will stay on the ground. Instead, we are using the roof for solar thermal panels and glazing. My wish is that all new houses had both - photovoltaic and thermal panels - on their south facing roofs. I still see new houses going up not having a south roof. Planners should insist on this.

Thinking of large scale use of solar panels as in the question, they need to be at an angle and if mounted high above the ground, protection will be needed all around them. The struts would need good anchorage or weighting because the gale force winds, we now get, would lift the panels and perhaps even the struts. Same applies with putting them on roofs. It is done, but they can't lie flat and have to be part of the structure of the building (rock solid anchorage). Many of the buildings mentioned have flat roofs. We've all seen the damaged caused by the winds over the past few winters.

To put them onto factories, barns and schools would be at the expense of the owners of these buildings. The power produced benefits that building first and then any left over can be fed back into grid and the owners are paid for this.

It is totally different when looking at the installation of a solar farm. We have one close to us. In this instance the land was not suitable for agriculture. The farmer leases the land to a solar company, who built the solar farm around the few existing trees, which are very short, and nothing on the land was disturbed.

Planners here in Cornwall do turn down applications for solar farms. One quite recently. Objections all related to loss of agriculture land and it's an AONB. Farmers and landowners don't sell their land to the solar companies, the lease it and can make more from leasing their land than farming it.

However, Cornwall could be getting two more solar farms which will be a total size of 150 football pitches. The amount of power generated will feed 24,000 existing homes and any surplus will be fed back into the national grid. I believe one of these is on land totally unsuitable for agriculture or growing trees. It's in our Clay Pit area. The amount of waste from mining in Cornwall has had a huge effect on usable land for agriculture. Some of the land has been put to good use: Eden Project. It's very common place for Phase 1 and 2 mining surveys to be done for Planning Permission.

40% of Cornwall's energy is produced by renewables and it's growing. I hope sources of renewable energy will continue to grow to help with the reduction of carbon emissions.

Much of what I write has come from MrM. All questions will be forwarded to him ?.

Muse
We lived off grid for 20 years. Our wheelhouse roof was fitted with solar panels 16’ x16’ We had 2 Rutland wind generators up there as well. Obviously these were laid down when we went to sea.
Very often we would generate so much power we had to run some off
As you can imagine I’m a huge fan of solar/wind energy.
I’ve been out to the wind farms in the Thames Estuary many times: it’s a wonderful sight.

Interesting article in the financial pages of the Guardian today

"BP’s joint solar venture Lightsource BP to more than double expansion by 2025
Deal worth £1.3bn means operation will develop enough solar farms to power equivalent of 8.4m homes"

There was a photo of a huge solar floating venture on the Queen Elizabeth 11 reservoir south of the Thames.
I'm sorry I don't know how to do a link

Thanks Muse, lots of interesting points. Lucky you to be building your own green home, it’s what we plan to do next. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick your brains.

Link that Ilovecheese mentioned:

www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/20/bps-joint-solar-venture-lightsource-bp-to-more-than-double-expansion-by-2025

Really interesting, thank you!

Interesting article Ilovecheese, thank you, certainly seems the way forward.
Thanks for providing the link Alegrias, I was busy trying to work out how to do it.

If we are to have renewable energy then we have to find a space for them, roofs of course otherwise where they are no intrusive. Wind turbines I like, as long as I cannot hear them it’s fine.

Sara1954

Totally agree.
There must be acres of space on trading estates alone, they look hideous on the ground, and take up space which should be used more productively.

Exactly that ?