November 18, 2022France's plan for solar panels on all car parks is just the start of an urban renewable revolutionFrance has approved legislation that will require all car parks with more than 80 spaces to be covered over by solar panels.Several countries, most notably Germany, have already mandated developers of new buildings to incorporate renewables into their designs, like roof-mounted solar panels, biomass boilers, heat pumps and wind turbines.There would be further space over walkways and traffic lanes within the car park, but the solar panels would need to be kept far enough apart to stop them shading each other.Coming to a car park near youThe UK and countries further north receive less sunlight per m² and the sun sits lower on their horizon, which makes the issue of shading on panels bigger, although the longer days in summer do compensate for this to some extent.Also, while a lot of car parks in southern Europe already have sun shades over them (which allow solar panels to be mounted onto existing structures), this is rare in cooler countries."