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Zoo Allows Electric Cars To Be Re-Charged

This week San Diego Zoo has made available parking spaces where five electric cars at one go can re-charge their batteries with the help of solar panels.

The solar panels have been installed to provide a canopy that has taken up fifty car parking spaces. In addition to helping to re-charge vehicles any surplus electricity is stored through the night in lithium-polymer batteries that are known to be very efficient and then passed to the San Diego grid should it be required.

San Diego Zoo
(image credit: Bitman)

This re-charging station is just one of a number of features arranged for the 100 year anniversary in 2015 of the Panama-California Exposition.

Alex Kim, who is the director of residential services at San Diego and Electric that are involved in the project stated: “As a demonstration project, it can show to all the members of the public what the future can look like.”

In the region of 3.5 million members of the public of all ages visit the zoo every year.

The solar panel project is located by the main southeast entrance and blends in very nicely into the zoo’s focus on sustaining the environment. Other things that the zoo does along similar lines are the recycle of the waste from animals to be used as fertilizer and providing meals on plates that are biodegradable.

The solar panels can produce 90 kilowatts that is capable of providing sufficient power to just about 60 houses.

The equipment required to charge the cars was obtained with the assistance of a federal grant through ECOtality. The same project has been responsible for increasing the number of charging points throughout the city and surrounding areas.

The solar panels continue to provide power to both the cars and to homes and businesses in the locality even when the setting of the sun takes place.

We wait to hear what San Diego has in store for their residents next as far as environmentally friendly projects go.

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