Solar powered EV charging stations fascinate me. It's the combination of two incredibly cool technologies in the one spot and the design opportunties of these carports are endless. I wrote an article called The Coolest Solar Powered Car Charging Station Designs almost two years ago and I thought the topic deserves a follow up. Below are a few more cool solar EV charging stations that I have found. Two of them are follow ups from my old blog post - the stations back then were just concepts, now they are built and charging!
Point One S. By BMW
BMW and the construction firm Eight unveiled their solar charging station in September 2014. The station is installed at BMW in Munich and has been named Point One S. Point One S charging station has been built as a visible symbol for a new and emission free future for vehicles. Solar panels make up the wing shaped canopy and LED's are used as a beautiful display and serves an addition purpose of letting the user now how charged their car is.
Mitsubishi Solar Charging Station
Just for something a bit different Mitsubishi group have designed an arched solar power charging station in Cypress, California. The station has 96 175W Mitsubishi solar panels. The station has two charging points that can charge 4 cars at once. There are 3 types of chargers with different voltages; level 1 charging (110v) which will deliver a 100% charge in 22 hours for the Mitsubishi iMiEV; level 2 charging (220v) which can charge the iMiEV in 6 hours; and level 3 CHAdeMO Quick Charger, which can charge to 80% capacity in 25 minutes.
Whole Foods Solar Powered Car Park
It's not just the solar powered car park at the Brooklyn Whole Foods Market that is super inspiring, the entire store concept shows the way of the future.
The Brooklyn Whole Foods store has a solar canopy car parks with EV charging, LED lights powered by solar power and wind turbines. A greenhouse on the roof and they are selling produce they grow on their roof. The site they choose was contaminated, but they cleaned it up to the highest level... and solar many more cool features, check out the video above.
The 325kW solar power carport supplys approximately 380,000 kWh of solar power annually, reducing their energy demand by around 25%.
Pure Tension Pavilion
This is one of the charging station concepts that I wrote about in the 2013 blog post that have been brought to life! The Pure Tension Pavilion was created for Volvo by a team of companies; SDA, Buro Happold and Frabric Images. It is a rapidly deployable solar powered charging station for Volvo's V60 Hybrid Electric Diesel car. The Pure Tension Pavilion is a tension membrane structure made of 252 solar panels emdedded into the mesh skin, supported by a carbon fiber ring.
iSolar - by BMW
Last year, BMW unveiled it's solar charging carport concept which they have called iSolar, designed by BMW Group and DesignworksUSA. It keeps the sunlight and hail off the car, but also serves to charge the parked electric vehicle. While being beautifully designed, it's also designed to be eco-friendly with bamboo beams, carbon fiber at the joints, and 40 light-thru solar panels which are more eco-friendly because they are support to last longer than regular panels.
Fastned Solar Charging Stations - Netherlands
Lastly, in the 2013 blog post I wrote about the concept and plans for a solar powered car charging network in the Netherlands. Netherlands dreams has come true! They now have 30 of these charging stations in operation. It's amazing to see the charging stations look exactly like the concept plans, with their big yellow arches. The arches were designed so they could be seen from far away while driving.
Great blog Kristy, it's so good to see so many different examples of charging stations from around the world. EV's open up a new market for both the vehicle and the charging services. It looks like the time for EV's is now and NZ has ample opportunity to get involved and transform our own transport infrastructure to one less reliant on fossil fuels.