Part of creating and building the technology that will power a more sustainable future is taking a holistic approach: recognizing how different eco elements fit together to create a whole system that is greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Today in Plainville, Connecticut, GE unveiled a new solar-powered electric vehicle carport that boasts parking space for 40 vehicles, six Level 2 charging stations and enough power to fully charge 13 electric vehicles per day – making it one of the largest in North America.
CT Governor Dannel Malloy and GE Energy Industrial Solutions CEO Luis Ramirez at the carport ribbon-cutting in Plainville today
It’s by powering the carport with solar energy, though, that GE is doubling down on renewable, clean energy – and helping innovate what is the future of transportation in America.
It’s the same type of bet as the one made last week in Durham, North Carolina, where GE Aviation opened a new seven-acre solar field that will supply a third of the daytime electricity for its facility there. And as the one made by GE Energy in announcing the result of a $500 million R&D investment in Paris yesterday: a more flexible and efficient gas turbine that will make the integration of power from renewables into the grid more seamless by adjusting more quickly to periods of intermittency – for those times when the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow.
“We are creating something extraordinary in the EV world,” said Luis Ramírez, the CEO of GE Energy Industrial Solutions, at the launch event attended by Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy. “We see any place where you park your car for a time period as a great opportunity for charging infrastructure.”
* Read about GE’s big push to manufacture more efficient solar panels.
* Read about the EV Tour.
