Solar-Powered Community Transporters in Florida

Clean Power Published on November 2nd, 2010 | by Zachary Shahan

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I love finding great clean energy news from my home state of Florida, and even more so from my home city of Sarasota. For some reason, it makes it all seem a little more real, a little more significant, and a little more widespread to me.

News from Florida now is that Pelican Bay, Florida will be using completely solar-powered community transporters, mostly for transporting its many tourists around the community. And, I was surprised to find out, these solar-powered community transporters will be coming from Sarasota! Eco Trans Alliance is the Sarasota-based company that creates them.

Domestic Fuel writes:

Tourists who visit Pelican Bay, one of Florida’s premier beachfront communities, will now be transported via solar trams. The Pelican Bay Foundation, which owns 43 acres of parks, recreation areas, beachfront facilities and boardwalks, has officially converted their resident transportation trams system to solar/electric vehicles provided by Eco Trans Alliance of Sarasota, Florida.

Curious exactly what a “solar-powered community transporter” is? The photos above, of course, are worth a thousand words. But for some text, these are solar/electric “tram systems” (or, I would say, golf carts). Domestic Fuel reports that the ones Pelican Bay will be getting will include 460-watt solar charging systems on board. Each solar charging system is expected to produce over 400 kWh of electricity. Replacing all 40 of the community’s trams with these solar/electric vehicles is expected to cut the community’s CO2 emissions by 22,000 pounds a year.

I wrote on similar solar/electric vehicles (free ones) from the Solar Electric Vehicle Company last year. Looks like more companies are venturing into this field and are able to find clients who see the value in these innovative vehicles.

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Photo Credits: Eco Trans Alliance
Tags: electric tram, Florida, Pelican Bay, Sarasota, solar vehicles, solar-electric trams, solar-electric transporters, solar-electric vehicles

Zachary Shahan I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. Aside from my work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, I'm the Network Manager for their parent organization – Important Media – and I'm the Owner/Founder of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com or click on some of the links below.

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