New solar canopies have been installed near four Capital Bikeshare docking stations across D.C., as part of a pilot program aimed at using solar power to charge e-bikes.
The initiative, which started last week, aims to “really make a difference in terms of our charging operations,” said Aaron Goldbeck, who manages the sustainable transportation programs team at D.C.’s Department of Transportation.
The new solar charging stations have been installed at M Street and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest near Georgetown, 4th Street and M Street Southwest, 15th Street and Constitution Avenue Northwest, and outside the Eastern Market Metro station.
The stations feature a two-ton, gray steel, solar canopy. It has about 120 square feet of solar panels, Goldbeck said, and is about 12 feet tall.
“The idea here is that it is a large enough solar array to collect a sufficient amount of solar power to recharge our e-bikes while they’re parked at the docking station,” Goldbeck said.
Each e-bike’s frame has space for a battery, which technicians have to remove and swap out when they die, he said. There’s a team of people responsible for driving a van around the city to swap out dead batteries with charged ones.
The agency has a dashboard to monitor how much power is being collected in real time, and even though the solar power won’t be recharging all of the e-bikes, Goldbeck said, “If it’s successful and impactful, we’ll be able to scale it up.”
“The batteries that we recharge, we’re recharging in a warehouse facility connected to the grid, which is not necessarily the cleanest source of power,” Goldbeck said. “So now we’re using 100% renewable energy to recharge the batteries, as well as eliminating the driving around piece.”
Earlier this year, D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment gave Lyft a $375,000 grant to upgrade the Capital Bikeshare docking stations with solar power. That covers the charging apparatus and the new stations, which Goldbeck said create an “electrical connection between the bicycle and the solar panel.”
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