"Solar Trees" EV charging stations

[benbradley]

Saw this on Facebook, each solar "tree" has about the surface area of a car, and is shown with FOUR EV's plugged in and charging (!). It's of course grid connected and no doubt 95+ percent of charging power comes from the grid. Clicking through, it also has piezoelectric "leaves" to also generate electricity from the wind. It says each tree generates 5kw, but there's no conditions specified (full noonday sun in a hurricane?) nor any other technical info. For more buzzwords, it uses "an AI-driven energy storage and management system." It must be good, it's AI-driven!!1!

TLDR it's a standard grid-powered EV charging station with a few misleading "feel-good" solar cells.

https://electrek.co/2022/09/06/solar-tree-ev-charging-stations/

[Someone]

5kW would be 30m² of panels, about the same as 2 car spaces. Checks out ok

Californians drive on average 12,500 miles per year:
https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-driven-per-year/
so around 10kWh per day if the cars are using 300Wh/mile

With capacity factors of PV solar above 0.25 in California, you're looking at >30kWh per day so its about right. Just using the grid for storage as needed.

[bdunham7]

Sheesh.  Function over form?  Just put up a full slanted-roof structure so that the cars can be fully shaded and you can get more power for less cost.  Covered/shaded parking lots would be a huge benefit here in SoCal.

[Haenk]

I really like the sun-shines-from-the-left-and-right shadows plus the zero-gravity-floating-in-the-air cables.

What a nonsense, again.

[MrMobodies]

I find they look more like umbrellas.

The SolarBotanic energy tree, which features what the company says is the “world’s first” 3-D leaf-shaped photovoltaic nanotechnology, utilizes thin-film solar cells and has a power generation capacity of 5 kilowatts.

I was trying to find real pictures of this prototype.
i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/09/solar-trees-1.jpg?w=600

London-based SolarBotanic Trees officially launched its “solar tree” prototype today, and the company wants to use it to power EV charging stations first.

This couldn't be their prototype as it is plainly obvious to me it looks like CGI starting from the fences as with the pictures on their pictures on their website.

See attachment name:
Copy of Model v3 SW Render_JPG.jpg

A model.

I see the partner affiliates include Universities.

Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre - Sheffield

Advanced Forming Research Centre - University of Strathclyde
Manufacturing echnology Centre

Brunel University London

With all those universities involved they must have more to pictures to show of this prototype than some lousy CGI images.

5 Year Plan:

Okay so they have planned to build a prototype before requesting funding.

[Ranayna]

Sheesh.  Function over form?  Just put up a full slanted-roof structure so that the cars can be fully shaded and you can get more power for less cost.  Covered/shaded parking lots would be a huge benefit here in SoCal.

But that is just too boring. Too simple. Too cheap.
I may be jaded, but in the last couple of years i have more and more the feeling that simple solutions are just not taken seriously. At least not in the media. It has to be flashy, it has to be something new, it has to look special.

[SiliconWizard]

That's cute.

[bdunham7]

But that is just too boring. Too simple. Too cheap.
I may be jaded, but in the last couple of years i have more and more the feeling that simple solutions are just not taken seriously. At least not in the media. It has to be flashy, it has to be something new, it has to look special.

Is this so awful to look at?

[AndyBeez]

What goes around... Dubai Expo 2020 'Energy Trees' >

https://virtualexpodubai.com/sustainability-district/energy-trees

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/10/dubai-expo-sustainability-pavilion-giant-energy-tree-solar-sustainable-design/

[james_s]

Yeah that's completely stupid. A conventional flat roof structure is cheaper, easier, and objectively superior as you can park the car under shade to protect it from the sun and reduce solar heating which is good for both materials of the interior, the batteries, and reducing the energy consumption needed to cool down the car when it ready for use.

[helio0centra@gmail.com]

The sun is only gonna hit one or 2 solar panels at any kind of optimal angle at a time. A dome is a very inefficient shape for solar.

Piezoelectric can produce a high voltage, but very low amperage so without a huge number of "leaves" you aren't getting hardly anything from that. Probably just a gimmick.

[Ranayna]

But that is just too boring. Too simple. Too cheap.
I may be jaded, but in the last couple of years i have more and more the feeling that simple solutions are just not taken seriously. At least not in the media. It has to be flashy, it has to be something new, it has to look special.

Is this so awful to look at?

No, it isn't. Maybe i should have appended a /s
I agree with you, a solution like that would be better in any conceivable situation. But that already exists, and the designers of this "tree" can't grift money with an already existing sensible solution. Then they would actually have to deliver something working :p

[SiliconWizard]

The sun is only gonna hit one or 2 solar panels at any kind of optimal angle at a time. A dome is a very inefficient shape for solar.

Piezoelectric can produce a high voltage, but very low amperage so without a huge number of "leaves" you aren't getting hardly anything from that. Probably just a gimmick.

But that's cute.

[pcprogrammer]

but they look more like mushrooms then trees

Yes simple and effective solutions do not appeal as much as something fancy pansy like this, and using tree in the name gives an organic feel to it. You know for the tree huggers out there 

[Marco]

Is this so awful to look at?

It looks fine, but does show some economic issues. It needs to be center supported so idiots don't ram the corner posts, that's a lot of steel. If you build something yourself for a driveway you can make it for a tenth of the cost.

Cheaper to fill some warehouse roof with panels and leave the cars in the sun.

[wraper]

Is this so awful to look at?

It looks fine, but does show some economic issues. It needs to be center supported so idiots don't ram the corner posts, that's a lot of steel.

I's not about idiots but not placing obstructions in otherwise useable space. Gas station roofs are made in similar manner.

If you build something yourself for a driveway you can make it for a tenth of the cost.

Really? Even if we assume that construction itself costs 10 times more than solar panels above it, this still makes no sense.

Cheaper to fill some warehouse roof with panels and leave the cars in the sun.

You 'just' need to find a warehouse, probably a kilometer away. Sign a contract with owner and somehow run a cable from it, likely over land with many private owners

[Marco]

Why does it matter if the power is really delivered or used somewhere else? A watt is a watt and on the scale of those couple panels it doesn't really tax the grid, it matters very little for grid scaling.

[wraper]

Why does it matter if the power is really delivered or used somewhere else? A watt is a watt and on the scale of those couple panels it doesn't really tax the grid, it matters very little for grid scaling.

Because placing them somewhere else is not free either, the same way as you cannot use existing electric grid for free. You will be selling that electricity for cheap to electric company and buying for much more. In this case you probably should abandon installing solar panels altogether. Not to say existing electric grid likely cannot support this much power anyway, and you will need to replace it.

[Marco]

Hmm, I see where I went wrong. You're right.

Maybe government should allow distributed generators/consumers to act as one customer for electricity companies, so subsidies don't create the perverse incentive to install fewer watts per subsidy dollar just to keep it ultra-local for small installs. This level of locality serves little fundamental purpose other than gaming the system.

[bdunham7]

Maybe government should allow distributed generators/consumers to act as one customer for electricity companies, so subsidies don't create the perverse incentive to install fewer watts per subsidy dollar just to keep it ultra-local for small installs. This level of locality serves little fundamental purpose other than gaming the system.

The utility will argue that if the power is transmitted over their system--even a 'local' part--that they should be paid for providing that service.  I don't totally disagree with them.  The grid is not valueless nor free.

The structures I showed use no net space, provide shade and really don't look all that expensive to build.  Yes, there's some steel, but they have to withstand 80+ MPH winds.  I would guess that steel was a much smaller input than the solar panels/wiring/inverters or the construction labor.  It is a public (city) owned project, so maybe I'll try and find out how much it actually cost.  I'm pretty sure it is better than solar roadways or magic solar mushrooms.