The USA’s Envision Solar has developed a relocatable solar powered electric car charging station that can be deployed in minutes.
Designed to fit comfortably inside a standard parking space, its 2.3kW solar panel array generates approximately 16kWhrs per day and features 22kWhr battery storage.
The EV ARC solar power system incorporates a tracker, enabling the array to follow the sun and generate 18 to 25% more electricity than a fixed array.
EV ARC doesn’t require any foundations, trenching or building permits and weighing approximately 5 tonnes, there’s little risk of it toppling over in high winds (or being stolen).
A built in digital advertising screen can help also help owners of the system to generate revenue.
Envision Solar says deployment time is about 5 minutes instead of several weeks for a traditional, mains-grid tied electric vehicle charger.
In September, the City of Shasta Lake, California installed an EV ARC at the City’s Grand River municipal parking lot on Shasta Dam Boulevard; which will be available free of charge to the public.
“It was not economically feasible to run trenching and grid connections to this important location but the EV ARC delivers EV charging where traditional chargers cannot,” said Desmond Wheatley, CEO of Envision Solar. ” Additionally, this will be the first EV ARC™ to offer electric wheelchair charging, something we are very proud of.”
In June, EV ARC was selected by the Organization for the European Business Awards for the Environment.
EV ARC certainly isn’t cheap (around USD $40,000), but current subsidies in the USA can cut the price in half and it represents another marker on the road to a fossil fuel free world of transport.
Envision Solar is also the creator of the award-winning Solar Tree; a fixed solar structure for parking lots that shades six parking slots and generates enough energy to fully charge six electric vehicles each day.
