Category: Wind & Solar Tower News

EV charging isn’t as green as you’d think. More than 60% of our electric grid is powered by burning dirty fossil fuels. Using that dirty grid to charge electric vehicles (EV) only adds pollution and greenhouse gasses to the air we breathe.

Change Wind Corporation introduced the Wind & Solar Tower (WST) to provide pollution-free level-4 DC charging for electric vehicles.  According to a statement, the tower provides level-4 DC ultra-cast charging, 328 miles of range in about 15 minutes, and 653,000 miles of pollution-free driving per year.

Made possible by a charger powered by a combination of wind and sun, the WST generates 61.5 kW of pollution-free electricity per operating hour for EV charges or any other use. Because they do not need a grid connection, the towers can be installed in rural and remote locations far from a grid that would otherwise add pollution and greenhouse gasses to the air we breathe. The WST also uses no external water supply, needing only centrifugal force to clean its patented rotating solar panel with fresh morning dew.

Each WST is capable of charging six vehicles simultaneously at Level-4 DC ultra-fast charge rates of 6.333 kW per minute that add about 22 miles of range. To maximize charge rates and number of charges at ultra-high kilowatt and voltage levels, each WST is equipped with integral battery storage ranging up to one megawatt. The WST’s battery-based DC modular architecture accommodates plug-and-play upgrades that assure the WST’s longevity.

Read more at chargedfleet.com at https://www.chargedfleet.com/10169805/the-wind-solar-tower-for-zero-emissions-charging

A start-up electric vehicle charging company has come up with a unique solution for charging vehicles using wind and solar power. Change Wind is developing the Wind and Solar Tower, a freestanding unit that incorporates both a wind turbine and solar panels along with battery storage to provide grid-free service for electric cars.

The towers, better presented to the world back in March, also offer a solution for charging electric vehicles in rural areas or along major highways to facilitate EV road trips. The company says the Wind and Solar Tower is capable of supporting so-called Level 4 DC charging with a flow rate of 380 kW at up to 1,000 volts. At that level, the system delivers 6.333 kW, roughly 22 miles of range, per minute. That works out to over 300 miles of range in 15 minutes.

While current cars don’t have the systems to accommodate that rate, the company says the new 800-volt architecture of the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 is a step towards being able to charge vehicles at higher and faster rates than current Level 3 technology.

Also, the higher voltage and kW flow would be ideally suited for charging large electric semi-trucks. In the meantime, Wind Change would also be able to offer more traditional Level 2 and 3 charging capability.

Read the rest of the story at autoevolution.com at https://www.autoevolution.com/news/off-grid-wind-and-solar-charging-offers-a-sustainable-option-for-ev-use-188259.html.

The Wind & Solar Tower provides Level-4 pollution-free charging

NEW YORK, May 3, 2022 – More than 60 percent of our electric grid is powered by burning dirty fossil fuels. Using that dirty grid to charge electric vehicles (EV) only adds pollution and greenhouse gasses and pollution to the air we breathe.

Improving air quality and helping improve our climate will require pollution-free EV charging methods. While EVs represent an improvement over vehicles that burn gasoline and diesel, better and cleaner charging is needed to lessen greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to climate change. 

Due to conversion losses in the electricity generating process, power plants burn almost 3 kilowatt (kw) hours of fuel to deliver 1 kilowatt of electricity to the grid, resulting in a tremendous waste of energy and an increase in pollution. In 2019, utility-scale power plants consumed 38 quadrillion BTUs of energy to provide 14 quadrillion kilowatts of electricity. That means that more than 60 percent of the fuel burned to make electricity is lost to thermal, mechanical and generator inefficiency before a single kilowatt enters the grid. Then, another 5 percent of that electricity is lost within the transmission and distribution grid.

Pollution-free Level-4 DC Charging: Goodbye Dirty Air and Grid Strain

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Department of Energy reports that in 2020, the average American suffered through eight hours of electrical outages. Our grid comprises more than 9,200 generating units and depends on more than 600,000 miles of ~300,000-volt transmission lines that in many cases are 40 years old. There are also millions of miles of low-voltage power lines with distribution transformers, some of which are more than 50 years old. With these weaknesses, the grid is in continual peril of brownouts and blackouts. The only “clean” and sensible way to take pressure off the aging grid is to add distributed renewable generation.

Due to rolling blackouts, California experienced 25,281 electric power outages in 2019, a 23 percent increase from 20,598 in 2018. Those outages victimized 28.4 million electric vehicle customers, a 50 percent increase over the 19 million Californians affected in 2018.

To travel 100 miles, the average EV requires approximately 30 kilowatt hours of electricity. The average American home consumes roughly that amount in an entire day. If EV adoption and single-family home forecasts bear out, by 2030, EVs will consume as much electricity as 35 percent of single-family homes in the U.S. Based on the annual average of 13,474 miles driven by passenger cars and 12,435 by last-mile delivery trucks, EVs will consume more than 137 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year. 

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory calculates the grid load of a single grid- connected DC fast charge as equal to the electrical consumption of 50 homes during the charging period. Multiplying that load by 18.7 million EV passenger cars and 10.4 million last-mile delivery EV trucks creates a problem in supplying the vast amount of electricity required for charging those vehicles. The overarching challenge becomes how to satisfy this instantaneous power demand, or surge. 

Boston Consulting Group predicted in 2019 that to meet increased demand, utilities will need to invest $1,700 to $5,800 per electric vehicle in grid upgrades through 2030. That grid infrastructure upgrade would require an investment of up to $178.7 billion by 2030.

The Wind & Solar Tower: Level-4 DC Ultra-Fast charging, 328 miles of range in only 15 minutes, and 653,000 miles of pollution-free driving per year

One solution that provides the needed clean energy, convenience and fast-charging is Change Wind Corporation’s patented Wind & Solar Tower (WST). It generates 61.5 kW of pollution-free electricity per operating hour for EV charges or any other use. This is made possible by the world’s only charger powered by a combination of wind and sun. Because WSTs do not need a grid connection, they can be installed in rural and remote locations far from a grid. To maximize charge rates and number of charges at ultra-high kilowatt and voltage levels, each WST is equipped with integral battery storage ranging up to one megawatt.

MIT scientists determined that dust and other particulates inhibit solar panel output by up to 30 percent in only a month. Commercial solar installations are estimated to consume 10 billion gallons of water for panel washing. That figure is equivalent to the drinking water consumption of 2 million people. Countering that expensive and wasteful water usage, the WST uses no external water supply, needing only centrifugal force to clean its patented rotating solar panel with fresh morning dew.   

Each WST is capable of charging six vehicles simultaneously at Level-4 DC Ultra-Fast charge rates of 6.333 kW per minute that add about 22 miles of range. This metric is based on a conservative estimate of 3.46 miles per kW. Each WST produces more than 188,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually on site where it is used. This annual production total assumes only a 33-percent wind duty cycle and a 45-percent solar duty cycle. By not relying on the grid, that substantial output is immune to power line resistance losses, brownouts and blackouts.  

To put that output into perspective, those ~188,000 kilowatt hours can charge 9,441 EVs with 20-kilowatt DC Ultra-Fast charges. And thanks to that capacity, it takes under 190 seconds — just over 3 minutes — to add 20 kW and approximately 70 miles of pollution-free driving range. As the world’s highest-output Level-4 DC Ultra-Fast charger, with peak charge rates of 380 kW at 1,000 volts, a 15-minute charge delivers 328 miles of range. And, for drivers short on time, a five-minute charge delivers 109.5 miles of range.

Because it uses only wind and sun power, each WST offsets the CO2 emissions from over 594,788 kilowatt hours of power plant electric production at .85 pounds of CO2 per kWh that translates to 252.784 tons of CO2 that each Tower prevents from entering our skies. The WST’s CO2-offset figure above is based on EIA data stating that more than 60 percent of the energy used for electricity generation is lost in conversion. 

Burning a gallon of gasoline emits 19.37 pounds of CO2. An EV gets 3.46 miles per kW, so it follows that each WST provides 653,323 miles of 100 percent pollution-free electric-powered driving per year.

Although pollution-free and environmentally friendly, in no way does the WST compromise on power delivery. In fact, it can deliver peak charging rates of 1,314 miles of range per hour.                

EVs are not dirty, but the electricity that charges them is filthy

The WST’s Level-4 DC Ultra-Fast 380 kW 1,000-volt charging delivers clean electricity at the fastest charging rates available today. The WST’s battery-based DC modular architecture accommodates plug-and-play upgrades that assure the WST’s longevity as a leading-edge EV charging system. Moreover, unlike drivers who use grid-dependent EV charging, EV drivers who utilize WST pollution-free charging can rejoice in the fact that they are not dirtying the air nor harming the environment.  

Also available on-line at https://newspressusa.com/publicReleaseView/73009/8242

A former racing driver and hot rodder has turned his attention to electric-car charging.

Jim Bardia currently owns an MG Metro 6R4 Group B rally car and a nitrous-boosted V-8 ambulance he uses to deliver stuffed animals to children’s hospitals. But his biggest project is Change Wind Corporation, which is marketing a unique EV charging solution called the Wind & Solar Tower.

As the name says, the 82-foot tower harnesses both wind and solar energy to charge electric cars. It consists of a six-helical-blade wind generator with a self-cleaning solar panel on top, all in a two-square-meter footprint. It can also be coupled with a 1,000-kwh energy storage array.

The solar and wind sources combined generate up to 52.5 kw, with a total annual output of 169,000 kwh, according to Change Wind Corporation. That’s enough to give 8,455 EVs per year a 20-kwh road-trip top-off, the company claims. Using the onsite battery storage, up to six vehicles can charge at a time.

Change Wind Corporation also claims its design can generate power with just 5-mph winds, versus a 26-mph minimum for commonly used propellor/pinwheels designs. The company also claims its design doesn’t produce as much noise as conventional wind turbines, has lower maintenance needs, and won’t kill birds.

Read the rest of the story at motorauthority.com at https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1135297_2022-toyota-mirai-price-specs-review-photos-info.

Driven.co.nz | March 3, 2022

One of the big questions of electric vehicle charging, is how green is the energy that’s used to power them? 

It almost seems irrelevant if the energy used to power EV charging stations is as dirty as the emissions of a combustion engine. So, Jim Bardia, an inventor who spent years engineering things like race cars, has come up with an idea to work on a better windmill.

The Wind & Solar Tower is designed on a vertical axis, which spins like a top, rather than a wheel, like what you’d find on a conventional windmill. Added to that is a solar panel that, W&ST claims, improves the electrical output by up to 45%.

This combined energy can generate 169,000 kWh of renewable energy each year, which can produce 965,606km of range for vehicles.

The towers can charge up to six vehicles at a time and have a 1,000 kW battery array built-in, with a grid connection that diverts surplus energy to the grid.

Read the entire article at driven.co.nz here https://www.driven.co.nz/news/this-ev-charging-station-gets-its-power-from-solar-and-wind/.

As part of the federal government’s “Rulemaking” process, CWC responded to a Request for Comments from the Federal Highway Administration regarding our recommendations for building out electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.

The company’s comments featuring the Wind & Solar Tower™ can be found in the Federal Register here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FHWA-2021-0022-0481