by Christa Morris
The approaching age of electric vehicles presents us with a secondary, albeit significant, challenge: building accessible recharging stations with renewable energy. While we’re at it, can our parking lots be shady, please?
One solution may already have arrived. In Neville Mars’s dreamy design, appropriately dubbed the Solar Forest, large, leaf-shaped photovoltaic panels on branching “trees” will provide both shade and power-up plugs for electric cars relaxing on the parking lot underneath.
The viral spread of this design would suggest this is a novel idea. But between the years of 2005 and 2007, Envision Solar cultivated its own Solar Grove in Kyocera’s San Diego parking lot. With the same goal of shading cement parking lots while capturing solar energy, this forest came to life with large, flat and rectangular PV “trees.” The solid technology promised to repay costs of installation within five years, but the clunky array looked more like helicopter landing pads than trees. Although functional, the Solar Grove failed to draw as much attention. 
In contrast, the blog-storm in the past week has focused little on the science behind the Solar Forest, and instead has been fueled by the trees’ organically striking visual appeal. In order for companies to fork up the initial installation costs, it is crucial that solar-parking-lot solutions are not just convenient and sustainable, but attractive as well.
The final question is whether the structure truly translates into function. Like many others, I was initially concerned whether the shade of overlapping PV leaves would waste surface area. However, Mars assured Mike Chino of Inhabitat.com that the leafy canopy design was not a goal, but the best solution to maximizing shade for the cars and sunlight for the PV panels—much like the dogwood tree in my backyard, the Solar Forest’s leaves will tilt and rotate with the sun.
If the Solar Forest can be modular and economical as well as effective, it will be worldchanging. Think of how much under-utilized, sun-baked parking lot space exists alongside a single strip mall! In any event, the excitement this idea has generated brings attention to the vital role of biomimicry in sustainable design, as well as the key goal of transforming the unsustainable (and downright ugly) spaces of the world into useful, beautiful, and bright green landscapes.
Learn more about, biomimicry, solar projects and EVs in the worldchanging archives:
Biomimicry 101
Solar Carbon Payback
Project Get Ready Aims to Create Electric Vehicle Revolution
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Transportation at 2:44 PM)