France to extract solar power from parking lots

France hopes to reduce its carbon emissions and diminish its dependence on imported oil by generating more electricity from solar power, with a requirement for photo-voltaic solar panels to be installed over large parking lots at the center of its plans.

The solar-power drive is part of President Emmanuel Macron's renewable energy legislation, which France's Senate approved this week.

The new law calls for pre-existing and new parking lots with enough space for 80 vehicles or more to be fitted with solar panels.

The owners of parking lots with up to 400 spaces will get five years to comply, while those with more than 400 spaces will get three.

Agence France-Presse news agency said parking lots will likely not look dissimilar to many already in existence in France that have some sort of informal roof, to ensure vehicles do not become too hot in the sun.

The new legislation calls for at least half of the footprint of each parking lot to be covered in solar panels.

Macron's government believes the move will generate as much as 11 gigawatts of electricity, which could power 8.25 million homes.

France is also looking at the idea of requiring solar panels to be installed next to freeways and rail lines, and on some types of farmland, but has not yet drafted legislation in those areas.

Macron has recently been pushing hard to get the nation to reduce its carbon emissions and also sat down with the bosses of France's most climate-damaging companies this week, to urge them to do more to slash their production of the gases that cause global warming.

"If you double your efforts ... we will double the financing dedicated to this issue and will increased the state aid package from 5 to 10 billion euros ($5-10 billion)," the Associated Press news agency quoted him as telling the business leaders, who represented 50 industrial giants that together account for 10 percent of France's emissions.

Macron made the push after returning from the United Nations' COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he urged other world leaders to "continue to take action" to limit global warming.

The European Union, of which France is a key member, has vowed to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 from the level in 1990, and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

Macron has also recently unveiled plans to accelerate the development of renewable energy, with more off — shore wind farms and solar power plants planned. He has said the country will build six new nuclear reactors as part of its efforts to cut emissions.

France has also begun an advertising campaign in which people are encouraged to cut back on their energy consumption at home.