Park Gets Solar Charging Station

By on March 15, 2011 4:51 pm in brooklyn bridge park, Environment

Brooklyn Bridge Park’s electric powered vehicles can now use a solar charging station (see two of them getting juiced up in the photo) donated to the Park by Brooklyn-based Beautiful Earth Group, a sustainable energy company. This is the first solar powered vehicle charging station in New York City.

According to Beautiful Earth, use of this station will save the Park “more than $200,000 in gasoline costs, and tens of thousands of dollars in electricity costs, over the 25-year lifetime of the project.” The Park’s use of the solar charging station and electric vehicles will, in combination, result in a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, compared to what would be emitted if fossil fuel powered vehicles were used.

Update: Amanda Cleary of Beautiful Earth sends us this clarification:

I noticed you had a comment about our claim regarding this station being the first of its kind in NYC. This is the same station that we built back in 2009 on a vacant industrial lot in Red Hook- it was used to power our MINI E (which has een charged solely with solar power). We are big fans of the Park and admire the efforts made to keep development as sustainable as possible. After meeting with park directors, we were told they would be using EVs for security and maintenance vehicles (Toros and GEMs). Since the station is completely modular (can be deconstructed and reconstructed in a day or two), we thought the park, only a short distance from our Brooklyn-based office, would be the perfect new home for our project. It will reduce emissions in the park, and will serve as an educational tool for the Conservancy.
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the station. I would be happy to discuss any information with you.
We have only recently announced this donation due to the fact that we wanted to make sure the station was fully operational for the Park’s employees before releasing all the details. They have been successfully charging emissions-free for several months now!

(Photos by C. Scales for BHB.)

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  • y

    hasnt this been there for at least 6 months?

  • http://brooklyncomplex.net Josh
  • Demonter

    The wave of the future…glad to see it happening in NYC.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    The containers and solar panels have been there for months, but they’ve evidently just been put into operation. Perhaps some equipment that goes inside the containers was just delivered.

    The press release claims this is the first of these installations in New York City. Since BE did an earlier press release claiming the same thing, I can only conclude that they’re liars, or have a severe institutional memory problem. (Update: They’re not, and they don’t. See the update to the top post.)

  • Bkre

    This is the same one from red hook. They picked it up, donated it to the park, and reassembled it. The news here is that the Park is using it now, which means it will get more use than it it did when it was in red hook, since the Park has a whole fleet (2-3 vehicles) of electric cars.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Claude beat NY1 to the story. That is why the blog pays him the big bucks.

    http://www.ny1.com/content/135596/brooklyn-bridge-park-station-to-charge-electric-vehicles

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    I wish.

  • Big Dave

    I’m trying to picture where this is – the boxes are butt ugly…

  • y

    Not sure about the just put into operation part. The carts have been plugged in for months as well. Maybe its a plot, like when u go to those furniture stores where you see all the fake TV’s. At least used to be fake TV’s.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    I’ve received a clarification from Beautiful Earth which answers the questions about the prior installation in Red Hook and the timing of the announcement of the installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It’s been added as an update to the top post.

  • Monty

    I think they look pretty cool. A post-industrial nod to the park’s roots. Serving a good purpose as well.

  • AL

    They may be functional but are an eyesore.