Peachtree Corners unveils solar roadway and EV fast-charging plaza

Source: Cities Today Published: December 16th, 2020

The City of Peachtree Corners in Gwinnett County, Georgia has launched a new solar roadway system that produces energy for an electric vehicle (EV) charging station at city hall.

Separately, the city has also revealed a new EV fast-charging plaza for up to 16 vehicles. The plaza is the inaugural project in Peachtree Corners’ new EV strategy, which could serve as a model for other cities.

The solar roadway is on a section of an autonomous vehicle test lane in the city’s Curiosity Lab real-world testing environment and has been provided through a partnership with The Ray, a non-profit proving ground in Atlanta.

The new system should produce more than 1,300 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually for a Level 2 EV charger at city hall, available at no cost to EV motorists. The charger is also equipped with an energy storage system for night-time charging.

In the future, it could power streetlights and other city infrastructure, as well as back-up for grid outages, the city said.

The Wattway solar roadway panels are manufactured by French company Colas Group in partnership with the French National Solar Energy Institute.

Solar road initiatives and trials have been launched in countries such as China and France but this installation represents the first public road deployment in the US.

Brandon Branham, Chief Technology Officer and Assistant City Manager of Peachtree Corners, told Cities Today: “This application is also the first time that the solar roadway is being used as the sole power source for an electric vehicle charging station, and not just feeding the grid with supplemental power.”

Click here to read more

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash