Great to see ideas in sustainable design tackled with an artistic sensibility! This solar forest charging system for parking lots could equally well be located on a roof as on a ground site enabling cars to charge-up as well as remain cool in warm conditions.
What a marvelous idea!
But (1) I wish the vehicles were pedal-powered or wind-powered (2)I’d like to read more about the technical feasibility of the project. We certainly need to find ways of making solar power beautiful but since it is, as yet, uneconomic there is a risk in doing anything which would make it less economic.
You are right of course. Perhaps this concept is for the ideas file of the time being….
The Economist reports, depressingly, that solar power costs 5 times as much as grid power but, hopefully, that many companies have technical plans for how to achieve ‘grid parity’ in generation costs.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft [http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/] offers a prize for advances in solar cell efficiency.
but of course all these cars are electric!(with renewable power sourcing)…..though yes i hope any carparks in the future will not take up enough ground level space to make mixed use solar panelling worthwhile. maybe a lot more underground carparking….please
Perhaps outdoor spaces could incorporate ideas from the porche garden?
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQoTS68e48w ]
I saw this at Hampton Court – and it looks much better on the video, because they did not have it in action, going up and down constantly
It is interesting that the electric cars are literally ‘green’ [ http://www.b-e-f.org/blog/?p=505 ] and the charging stations literally look like ‘old’ petrol pumps!
[ http://freepages.nostalgia.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cyberheritage/crediton.htm ]