GE Solar EV Carport: A New Era for Charging
OCTOBER 5, 2011
Earlier this summer, we featured the new 100-kilowatt-hour, solar-powered, electric vehicle-charging carport that GE installed in Plainville, Connecticut. While carports may conjure images of 1960s suburbia, this one is decidedly non-retro, with its ability to fully charge 13 EVs a day with renewable energy. Great idea, advanced technology and cool design, and as of today, not a one-off deal: GE Energy Industrial Solutions and U.S. solar power distribution and integration company Inovateus Solar, who collaborated on the Plainville carport, announced a partnership agreement at Greenbuild 2011, the world’s largest green building confab.
A rendering of the GE/Inovateus Solar carport.
The concept, as installed in Plainville, is holistic and simple: solar panels generate enough energy to offset the power needed to charge—with 6 Level 2 GE DuraStation1 EV charging stations—up to 13 EVs a day with enough juice left over for the parking lot’s overhead lighting. The new partnership will replicate that model, scalable to differing needs, at a variety of sites, from universities to municipal and office buildings to sports complexes. Inovateus will incorporate GE’s EverGold* Solar combiner boxes and safety switches, DuraStation and WattStation EV charging stations and its more traditional electrical distribution panels and switches into the carports.
