Portable Solar Carport with integrated EV-Charger
The Plug-and-Play
Solar Appliance for
Your Driveway
Hurricane on the way? Wheel it into the garage!
Over the summer of 2020, I worked on creating a mobile carport solar system that could be easily collapsed and fit into a garage in case of a hurricane. This system is not a stand-alone system yet and requires connection to the grid. In order for it to be a stand-alone system, we would have to have a battery, which makes the whole system more expensive. We currently have this system as patent pending that we call “Gismo Power”, an acronym for “Garage/Interior Storable Modular Photovoltaic On Wheels w/ Ev-charger Rack”. Since one full system has been completed, my goal for the project is to create a more powerful version of the Gismo Power system for New College of Florida.
Avoid soft costs and run on sunshine faster.
A big part of the costs of solar installations are the soft costs like permitting and contractor fees. The Gismo Power framework aims to greatly reduce these soft costs. I envision a prototype where the initial design can pass a UL certification and all further units will be treated as an electric appliance, just as if it were an EV charger without the solar system attached.
During the COVID pandemic, I learned TIG welding in our garage and created the first prototype. It needed to be big enough to fit a car underneath it but small enough to store in the garage during adverse weather. Bifacial solar panels made the most sense, since they generate electricity with both sides of the panels.
Carbon-Neutral "New Green Deal" since 2017
My passion for solar energy runs in the family. Our home has 66 rooftop photovoltaic solar panels and we officially run our entire home including all our EV's on solar electricity since 3 years.
Florida Power & Light enforces unfavorable policies which limit privately owned solar system installations to 115% of PAST usage and requires a system generating more than a theoretical maximum of 10KW to pay for an extraneous, unjustified liability insurance.
I take great pride in the fact that my German dad has officially received the honorary title “Florida Man” by PV-Magazine for filing a petition at the Public Service Commission against Florida Power and Light (FPL) which disincentivizes powerful residential solar systems.
Let's start harnessing the sun while shading our EV's
According to Bill Nussey's book "Freeing Energy," The US consumes approximately 4 petawatt hours of electricity per year. In order to meet our electricity demands for one year, we would need about 13,600,000 acres or 21,250 square miles of solar panels. This is the equivalent of one square with 145 miles on each side. The United States has 3,797,000 square miles of land total, so we would only need about 0.5% of our total land mass to power the entire nation.
Most of the campus parking lots are exposed to direct sunlight. Everyone knows the daily struggle of finding a shaded parking space so that you don't have to get into a hot car that feels like an oven. Gismo Power Carports can provide shade, generate electricity and provide charging stations for electric cars for private residences and campuses across the Nation!
