How Policy Is Like the Tide
Policy might seem slow and boring, but sometimes it's the most effective action. Solar PV for parking lots is a good example.
If you are a sea kayaker, you know how insidious and inevitable the tide can be. You beach your kayak at waters’ edge after a long day of paddling and go up to check out potential camp sites. While your attention is diverted, the tide has crept up and quietly floated your boat away.
Government renewable energy policy can be a little like that. It is quiet, even boring, but before you know it, it has floated the fossil fuel boat away out of your reach.
Enough simile-stretching.
France, Germany, and South Korea all have solar photovoltaic (solar PV) policies that will quietly make a big difference. The three countries policies encourage or mandate surface parking lots to install solar PV shading systems over significant fractions of the lot’s area.
France enacted a nation-wide requirement in 2023 that all outdoor parking lots greater than 1,500 square metres in area must install shading systems equipped with renewable energy production systems over half the lot’s area. Larger lots (10,000 square metres or more) have until July 2026 to complete the installations while smaller lots have until July 2028.1
Solar PV over parking lots is not mandated nation-wide in Germany, but some states have mandates for newly-built lots only. Baden-Wurtemberg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein require solar PV for lots with more than 35 – 80 (depending on individual circumstances) spaces.2
South Korea implemented a rule more recently (November 2025) requiring government public-surface parking lots over 1,000 square metres to install PV with a capacity of 1 kilowatt for every 10 square metres of space.3
Those are the policies but how much actual installation is happening, given that all the policies have nuances and exceptions? Solid data is difficult to come by. Projections for eventual total build-out are more common.
South Korea has 52 megawatts installed and expects 1.16 gigawatts of capacity from its policy when fully implemented.4
The picture in Germany is more complicated. One study estimated a total potential of nearly 70 gigawatts if all large parking lots install solar PV, but the study didn’t estimate the capacity total from implementing the state policies.5
The total capacity in France from solar PV installed over parking lots is expected to be around 11 gigawatts.6 For context, the capacity of the average nuclear power plant in France is 1 gigawatt.
First costs for these parking lot solar PV installations may be higher than rooftop PV, as structure and connection costs may be higher. However, if combined with EV charging and storage, the overall cost may be lower. Solar PV shades the vehicles underneath, an unquantified benefit. Diverting the solar energy to generate electricity instead of heating up asphalt also reduces urban heat island effects, while partially solving the problem of where to put all the solar panels we will need on the road to more electrification.
The solar PV tide is rising.
Reading
- “France: New Provisions on Parking Lot PV Requirement.” Accessed April 18, 2026. https://www.intersolar.de/news/parking-lot-pv-requirement-in-france.
- Haller, Daniele. “European Union: Law Requires PV Installation in New and Old Parking Constructions.” Canal Solar, September 14, 2023. https://canalsolar.com.br/en/European-Union-law-requires-PV-installation-in-new-and-old-parking-lots/.
- “South Korea Mandates Solar Systems at Public Parking Lots from Late November.” Pv Magazine Australia, November 14, 2025. https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2025/11/14/south-korea-mandates-solar-systems-at-public-parking-lots-from-late-november/.
- Bhambhani, Anu. “Solar PV Systems Must For Parking Lots In South Korea.” TaiyangNews - All About Solar Power, November 13, 2025. https://taiyangnews.info/markets/south-korea-mandates-solar-for-public-parking-lots.
- “Huge Potential: Parking Lot PV.” Accessed April 18, 2026. https://www.intersolar.de/market-trends/parking-lot-pv.
- “New Law: 50%+ Solar Power Over Parking Lots In France - CleanTechnica.” Accessed April 18, 2026. https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/09/new-law-50-solar-power-over-parking-lots-in-france/.