First Solar Powered EV Charging Station Opens At Brooklyn Bridge Park

The newly expanded Brooklyn Bridge Park keeps getting better and better. More and more waterfront property is being turned into beautiful grass and boardwalk promenades, and now it will be home to a solar-powered electric vehicle charging station in New York City, generously donated by Brooklyn-based Beautiful Earth Group (BE). The solar-powered station is the first of its kind in the Big Apple and one of only a few in the whole world.

Presented as a gift from BE, the station is totally off the grid and will use only solar power to charge EVs. Brookyln Bridge Park will use the station to power its electric service vehicles, which were purchased versus over gasoline-powered vehicles as per the park’s dedication to sustainability. The station will also save the park $200,000 in gasoline costs, as well as prevent 530 tons of carbon dioxide emissions that would have been a bi-product of gasoline powered maintenance vehicles.

The station itself was made from two recycled steel shipping containers (from a New York vendor), with photovoltaic panels lining the roof, and thus gathering enough solar power and transferring it to battery packs within the station. It can then charge five of the park’s electric service vehicles, an electric car and even a small home, yielding 5.6 kilowatts of power. The station is also modular, meaning it can be easily moved to another location, which BE hopes will spur other parks and companies to jump on the clean energy bandwagon. BE originally used the station for its own purposes before donating it to the park.

The station is only one of the sustainability efforts of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which also takes pride in reusing architectural salvage, planting of native species, and efforts in creating marine habitats, as well as utilizing rainwater. The BE charging station at Brooklyn Bridge Park as also part of Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, which is an effort to reduce New York City’s carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

More lush grass to sit on with gorgeous Manhattan views, and now an innovative renewable energy station- the Brooklyn Bridge Park is quickly becoming the green destination of New York City!

Source: Inhabitat