Windy City Announces Wind-Powered EV Charging Station

The Windy City is sure living up to its name! A wind-powered electric vehicle charging station was recently installed in Chicago.

Touted as the “first truly green electric car charging station in the continental United Staes,” the ChargePoint Networked Charging Station, from California-based Coulomb Technologies, is completely powered by the wind.

Carbon Day Automotive, Coulomb’s Midwest distributor, installed the EV charging station in the parking lot of a law firm in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.

And, according to a company press release, law firm Emalbarb, Swan & Bain entered into an agreement with Chicago-based retail electricity supplier, MC Squared Energy Services, LLC., and receives wind-powered Renewable Energy Credits (REC’s) which provides power to the firm’s office building.  Hal A. Emalbarb, a partner at the law firm, said, "By integrating renewable energy, in this case, the prairie winds of Illinois, to power our office and our cars, we have seamlessly accomplished the goal of a cleaner grid that leads to a reduction of green house gases.”

While the Highland Park wind-powered EV station is the very first of its kind in the continental United States, it was not the first in the nation. Last year, two Coulomb wind-powered stations were installed in front of the Maui Electric Company (MECO) on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The stations are powered by a single vertical axis wind turbine, located next to the stations.

And last year, the Carbon Day Automotive Solar Plug-in Station was installed at the City of Chicago’s Department of Fleet Maintenance, fueling all of the city’s plug-in electric vehicles with the power of the sun.

For more information on electric vehicle charging stations, be sure to read Mitchell Anderson’s article, EV Charging Sales Worth $6.5 Billion by 2015.