What's claimed to be the world's first fully integrated wind-powered electric vehicle charging station has just been unveiled in Barcelona, Spain. The Sanya Skypump marries a 4 kW turbine developed by New York's Urban Green Energy (UGE) and General Electric's (GE) WattStation charging technology to offer users the chance to juice up an EV using clean, renewable energy.
Designed primarily for commercial and government customers, the first installation of the Sanya Skypump at the Barcelona headquarters of waste management group Cespa was unveiled Tuesday. It features a 42 ft (13 m) high tower of galvanized steel that has a 77W LED light (6930 lumens) just over half way up and is topped by UGE's 4K vertical wind turbine (which, as the name suggests, has a rated output of 4,000-watts).
GE's WattStation (or Durastation, depending on where in the world you're reading this) sits at the bottom in a housing that protects all of the electronic components from the elements and features a touchscreen display for selecting the different charging options on offer and if/how you'd like to be notified when your EV is juiced up.
"The Skypump as a whole is interconnected to the grid, which makes it a very versatile unit," UGE's Mateo Chaskel told us. "When there is no car charging, the turbine still produces energy and sends it seamlessly to the grid, creating an economic benefit for the customer. Likewise, when there is no wind and a car needs to charge, it simply pulls the energy as needed from the grid."
"I believe GE's charging station is capable of charging an EV in as little as four hours. However, in the locations where these will be installed, we see them being used somewhat differently. We foresee them being used, for example, in commercial establishments where customers can charge their EV for an hour or so, while they shop, eat, go to the movies, and so on - creating both a benefit for the customer and an additional service to offer for the mall, supermarket, or restaurant."
The Sanya Skypump will make its U.S. and Australian debut later this year.
The following short video shows the Barcelona installation in operation:
Someday Solar pannels may be cheap enough and useful enough without phony subsidies to take off the ornamental "green roof" and reduce grid use even more. Ones in cities might get hooked up to gas lines and run a generator or fuel cell if the economics works out.
Pikeman's statement indicates it is a bad idea. It is more efficient to store the energy captured from the wind mechanically pumping water or mercury* to someplace high and generate the electricity at the moment of demand.
*Make double sure the system is sealed, but the energy density is nice.
@ slowburn: A 13M wind tower is much less structural cost than a local water tower with enough head to do what you suggest. Mercury is not cheap or easy to impliment either. Those systems are better in large installations under supervision. The costs are coming down fast on the basic technology of EV's because we need them.
Fast charging EV's requires a lot of power so having batteries to handle it will prevent it from overloading the grid locally. Otherwise larger transformers, wire from the powerplant would be needed for 15 minute charging or multiple EV's.
A well thought out name for what you are trying to sell!
Every great advancement we have had as a society has required government participation. The Oil industry today that is making obscene profits is still getting government subsidies. To whine about RE projects not standing alone is ignorant. The cost of solar has fallen dramatically in the past few years because of government investment in the industry. The Muther Frackers that are producing "clean" natural gas received multi millions of dollars of government research to develop that technology... Why are the whiners so quiet about that yet pontificate about RE not being economic?