Who doesn’t want to park their car in the shade? I’m hoping this idea will catch on in Colorado – businesses are now installing solar panels in parking lots: changing hot lots into shaded areas, while also collecting power from the sun. Check out one of the best solar uses – Solar Trees. Solar trees, like natural trees, convert sunlight into energy and provide highly desired shaded spots to drivers. Shading cars also reduces evaporation of fuel when a car sits and the need for heavy air conditioning to cool off after a day in the sun.

Check out the newest lots to hit the parking scene:

Google’s Solar Trees:
Google’s ambitious solar project for their Mountain View, California, headquarters. Estimated to feed about 30 percent of the complex’s entire power demand, one third of the 9,000 solar panels in the system will take the form of solar trees that will line the parking lots.

Envision’s Solar Parking Lot:
ENVISION Solar in collaboration with Kyocera created the original Solar Grove, an award-winning, 235-kilowatt solar carport installed at Kyocera’s North American headquarters in San Diego. This solar grove is an integrated system of 25 solar trees, to cover 150 cars in Kyocera’s parking lot and power the electricity of its La Jolla headquarters. That installment produced 427,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or the equivalent of energy required to power 67 average-size homes annually.

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