Parking Lots with Solar Trees ™ Provide Shade for Shopping Malls
Envision Solar is causing a lot of excitement in the beleaguered shopping mall world with its innovative use of solar energy: as Solar Trees™ in a Solar Grove™. Panels placed on retail parking lots — traditionally barren, heat-producing landscapes — can now provide shade for customers, while generating up to a half-megawatt of electricity. They can also block light pollution from nighttime parking lot lighting. I spoke to Pamela Stevens, EVP of Promotional Development for Envision Solar, who was visiting Las Vegas for the ICSC Recon show.
“In a competitive economic environment, shopping malls and big box stores are looking for a way to differentiate themselves. Our Solar Trees are not hidden away on the rooftop, and so they create visibility for the store, while providing comfortable shade for their customers, and generating clean energy.”
In addition, financing programs let retailers enjoy the benefits while avoiding initial capital outlays, making these clean energy generators even more appealing and easier for retailers to adopt. Down the road, Envision’s designers hope to make the solar parking lot the ideal place for recharging electric vehicles. I applaud Envision Solar, which was founded by architects seeking ways to design for sustainability, for seeing a problem and turning it into an asset.
Why are they called solar “trees?” I can’t really tell what they look like b/c the pic is an overhead. Do you have a picture which shows what it looks like to a customer underneath?
Great work tho– it’s amazing how much heat asphalt produces, and I’ve always thought we should use the ultimate universal source of energy– the sun– to power our endeavors.
Thanks,
Anne Atkinson
You mean ads like ‘Shop at Wallymarts and plug in for free’ What a great idea! It would reduce air conditioning cost by keeping cars cooler while parked too! Oil barons beware, Depleted Uranium batteries are just around the corner, and American ingenuity is endless! You will end up eating your oil ’cause we won’t need it anymore! Just think, a benzine molecule free, cancer free America, It can’t happen soon enough.
Thanks for the great comments and support! To answer the question about the naming of the product as a “tree”, our founder and CEO Robert Noble named the Solar Tree(TM) because the product is bio-identical, with a trunk and shade canopy. He even included several translucent panels with small PV squares so that there would be light under the canopy with the effect of sunlight through the leaves of a tree. Our product is based on the concept of “foresting” parking lots, activating them by “planting” Solar Trees(TM) and integrating clean energy into the architecture of a site, making it an important part of a customer’s experience. You can help! Ask your shopping malls and retailers, supermarkets and transit stations to plant Solar Trees(TM). Be cool, park Solar!
This is very exciting, and a great example of biomimicry. Keep up the good work, Envision. Here is the website of the Biomimicry Institute for more information. ttp://www.biomimicry.net/
This is truly phenomenal technology with no place to go but forward. I would hope the designers of the projects utilizing the Solar Trees include the “real trees” in abundance. The combination is mind boggling