California Parking Lot Produces 2 MW Solar, Charges Electric Vehicles

The ribbon was cut this morning on a 2 MW solar PV carport that will not only charge electric cars but deliver the excess energy to the grid. 

The solar PV carport has charging stations for 64 electric cars in a parking lot at the Metrolink Public Transportation Station in City of Industry, California. 

"The City of Industry took the opportunity to convert the Metrolink station parking lot into a state-of-the-art solar power generating facility that provides power to the grid, along with individual charging stations for electric vehicles," says David Perez, mayor of the City of Industry. 

The 2 MW carport provides shaded parking spaces for 940 cars. It has 8,372 solar panels and 196 LED lights – 10 miles of conduit and 44 miles of wiring were needed for the project.

This is the kind of thing, the Rocky Mountain Institute has been promoting for many years – they have long argued that zero emission electric cars could be turned into powerhouses by sending energy to the grid. 

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Comments on “California Parking Lot Produces 2 MW Solar, Charges Electric Vehicles”

  1. Mary

    Go California! We can absolutely become the world leaders in renewal solar power. Now we need to focus on manufacturing solar panels in the U.S. that beat out the prices from China. If we can succeed in that challenge, we can create more jobs.
    Mary
    http://solaruniversecalifornia.com

    Reply
  2. solar lawyer

    This sounds great! One question: are we generating DC electricity from PV, inverting it to AC, then charging batteries from the AC and converting it back to DC for the batteries? Isn’t there a way to do DC to DC charging??

    Reply
  3. Dennis Rowan

    solar lawyer, good question. same question for me,
    DC to DC for fast charging without inversion loss makes sense…

    Reply
  4. solargeek

    we need to start wiring our homes to us dc directly. look @ home many appliances, computers, etc use wall warts to convert AC to dc.

    Reply

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