MelissaA
Brenton
Shilpa Karhik
Solar Power - An Ideal Solution? Perhaps Not!
January 3rd 2008 09:59
In 2001, council officials from Nottingham, England, after observing how much money was saved in Mediterranean countries through the use of solar powered parking meters, decided that the idea was good enough to install back home. Thus, they ordered £1.1 million Pay-and-Display solar powered parking meters for their local council area.
However they overlooked one very important detail.
Being a part of mainland UK, sunlight can be in very short supply. Having lived in the UK now for 4 months, I can say that this is very much understated, although there are times when the weather is very nice, bright and sunny. However these are usually outweighed by the presence of overcast, if not rainy days.
Nottinghamshire had even experienced 16% more sunlight in the month immediately preceding the installation of the machines, but this was not enough to keep the plans in action.
In short, most of the devices gave up the ghost and refused to work due to lack of sunlight, allowing motorists to park mostly for free.
The meters have since cost more than £1 million a year to maintain and will now only switch on when a coin is inserted to stop the batteries draining.
The council's own admission of failure comes more from their own website where the link pointing to "details on Nottingham's new solar powered parking meters" is now extinct.
However they overlooked one very important detail.
Nottinghamshire had even experienced 16% more sunlight in the month immediately preceding the installation of the machines, but this was not enough to keep the plans in action.
In short, most of the devices gave up the ghost and refused to work due to lack of sunlight, allowing motorists to park mostly for free.
The meters have since cost more than £1 million a year to maintain and will now only switch on when a coin is inserted to stop the batteries draining.
The council's own admission of failure comes more from their own website where the link pointing to "details on Nottingham's new solar powered parking meters" is now extinct.
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