State of the Art Solar Parking for Eco Cars in Towns and Cities

As drivers are inundated with media and Government pressure about how un-environmentally friendly our cars are, car manufacturers are investing huge amounts of time and money on technologies to build hybrid and electric vehicles.

Prestigious manufacturers like Toyota, Lexus and Honda have been on the hybrid / electric scene for years. And today, many more affordable manufacturers such as Renault, Peugeot and Kia are presenting their own hybrid and electric models.

So as the car manufacturing world stands up and tries to make an environmental difference so to have some very innovative designers and architects when it comes to parking them!

A fascinating collection of state of the art eco parking has been developed by a myriad of leading, new and pioneering designers from around the Globe.

From a car park where cars are parked underneath a literal ‘forest’ of solar trees, cars parked standing up on their front ends in limited spaces, to a parking island off-shore which generates its own power, the ideas and possibilities are endless – all that limits these designs, in their conceptual stages, is the mind! With these kinds of futuristic car parks, electric cars could be charged by solar power, as would the electric power supplies to operate the car park itself, some of these car parks even feeding unused power back into the main power supply.

Today’s talent of environmental specialist designers and architects bring the idea of eco parking of the future that little bit closer to today.

Whilst many of the above mentioned eco car parks are currently designer blue prints, many designers have created their visions, and eco parking is up and running in the UK and the United States.

Take for example the PowerPark eco car parking that’s been created by Romag. Romag, based in Consett, County Durham, have created a parking canopy that can generate around 1,100kWh of emissions free power over a year to charge up hybrid plug-in and electric vehicles that park up underneath them. What’s more, the canopy can produce that amount of power even in areas of the UK are more so bathed in cloud than sun. And excess power is far from wasted; the PowerPark canopy is linked to the National Grid for any overspill of unused energy.

Computer giants, Dell, have installed CleanCharge solar parking stations in their headquarters in Texas. Green energy is powering up electric vehicles with excess energy lighting up the car park compound from dusk.

The car park in the town of Isla Vista, in Santa Barbara, is powered by its 98 solar panels – solar energy that is collected is used to light the car park and operate the pay parking meters on the site. Isla Vista is hoping to increase its panels by another 11 in the near future.

Could these types of eco parking be coming to an airport near you?