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Solar-Powered Carport Unveiled In Plainville (CT)
WFSB ^

Posted on 05/26/2011 2:35:35 PM PDT by matt04

PLAINVILLE, Conn. -- Gov. Dannel Malloy joined General Electric officials and employees Thursday in the unveiling of GE's electric vehicle solar carport in Plainville.

The 216-by-40-foot, carport includes four hook-ups for plugging in electric cars, and all the power will come from the solar panels.

Company officials said it's one of the largest solar carport projects in North America. They said it can provide clean energy alternatives to oil and biofuels and will last at least 25 years.

"Living in an area where you drive less than 100 miles a day, which is really what most people do here, the electric vehicle is a good opportunity," said Luis Ramirez, the CEO of GE Energy Industrial

The electric vehicle solar carport can create 125 megawatt hours, and plugging in an electric car can save consumers $4.11 a gallon at the pump, based on current averages in Connecticut.

General Electric said it partnered with a national solar power distributor and integrator, to install the carport. Company officials said it can fully charge up to 13 vehicles a day.

"Charging time for a vehicle like this is six hours on average. The bill is $3 per charge. That’ s pretty reasonable,” Ramirez said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Connecticut
KEYWORDS: efv; electriccar; energy; ge; malloy; volt
Wow, 13 whole cars each day, and all it takes is 6 hours of you time, if the sun is out.
1 posted on 05/26/2011 2:35:44 PM PDT by matt04
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To: matt04

Now go out and shovel off the carport. There is two feet of global warming on it.


2 posted on 05/26/2011 2:40:31 PM PDT by magslinger (What Would Stephen Decatur Do?)
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To: matt04

Hau match $$$ for karpork?


3 posted on 05/26/2011 2:40:51 PM PDT by Leo Carpathian (fffffFRrrreeeeepppeeee-ssed!)
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To: Leo Carpathian

More importantly, how much of it came from tax dollars?


4 posted on 05/26/2011 2:45:10 PM PDT by matt04
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To: matt04

Possibly reasonable for the dumbasses that insist on spend megabucks on a “green” car and live in a densely populated area.

Prolly won’t work here in South Carolina, thank goodness.


5 posted on 05/26/2011 2:45:56 PM PDT by upchuck (Think you know hardship? Ha! Wait till the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency.)
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To: matt04

So works great at night at home or will your company pay for covered plugin parking...? 4 Cars...so that covers all the Nissan Leafs sold in CT?


6 posted on 05/26/2011 2:48:05 PM PDT by colonialhk (Elect Veterans not Lawyers)
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To: upchuck

“Possibly reasonable for the dumbasses that insist on spend megabucks on a “green” car and live in a densely populated area.”

That’s why God invented bikes. If you live in a densely populated area where everything’s close together, you don’t add to our already congested city streets by buying a car when you don’t travel too far away from the city limits.


7 posted on 05/26/2011 2:54:50 PM PDT by NorthStarStateConservative (I'm just another disabled naturalized minority vegan pro life conservative.)
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To: matt04
The electric vehicle solar carport can create 125 megawatt hours.

Hmmm.
Incompetent reporting by the science clueless again.

Doesn't say in what time period, presumably a day, or 12 hours of daylight.
That would be 62.5 megawatt hours in 12 hours or 31.25 megawatt hours in 6 hours or roughly 5 megawatt hours per car.

I don't believe it.

Maybe if they connected a windmill at each end of that shed, long enough to physically accomodate fifteen cars at a time, rather than 4, plus a couple of small gasoline generators...

8 posted on 05/26/2011 3:16:09 PM PDT by Publius6961 (you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life.)
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To: matt04

I didn’t see any information on how much this solar powered carport cost to build.


9 posted on 05/26/2011 3:18:27 PM PDT by DugwayDuke
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To: Leo Carpathian

Odd, the article does not mention the cost.

I’m at work in the daytime, can I rent my spot out to a night shift worker, who can charge their car when they sleep?


10 posted on 05/26/2011 3:18:48 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: Publius6961

Yep, a very misleading statement. So assume the Sun is at noon for 8 hours per day. And let’s assume a 100% efficient panel. Solar input is roughly 1300 Watts per square meter at the equator, so to get 125 megaWatthours in one day you’d need 12,000 square meters.

Now adjust for Connecticut latitude and weather, and solar panel efficiency of 12% over 10 years.


11 posted on 05/26/2011 3:25:51 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: matt04

GE, actually, paid for all of it. No funds came from tax payer monies, for once. And as stupid as I think this whole thing is, it’s a very small plant and probably won’t even ever be used at full capacity.


12 posted on 05/26/2011 3:31:14 PM PDT by surroundedinCT
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To: matt04

So, how do I get home after dropping the battery wonder?


13 posted on 05/26/2011 4:01:06 PM PDT by Chickensoup (The right to bear arms is proven to prevent government genocide. Protect yourself!)
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To: surroundedinCT
GE, actually, paid for all of it. No funds came from tax payer monies, for once. And as stupid as I think this whole thing is, it’s a very small plant and probably won’t even ever be used at full capacity.

There is room to spend a small amount of money on experimentation. Many here disagree. They would still be using the horse and buggy because the first horseless carriages were impractical. There were no gas stations, no roads and there was no one to service the vehicles.

I'm one conservative who doesn't knock new technology. I say give the new cars a chance. The market will determine whether or not people will want to use these vehicles. A small amount of seed money and infrastructure money will not hurt and we must remember the government did pretty much the same thing when we started to pave the streets for the new automobiles.
14 posted on 05/27/2011 3:09:05 PM PDT by truthguy (Good intentions are not enough.)
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