Charge Your Phone for Free at One of These Solar-Powered Stations

Street Charge stations provide solar-powered energy for your smartphones. Image: Pensa

Citizens of New York City will no longer have to awkwardly go into a carrier store and ask to use their chargers and outlets. Thanks to Goal Zero, AT&T and Brooklyn design studio Pensa, NYC is getting several free solar-powered charging stations across the city.

Known as Street Charge, the stations will feature six built-in USB ports and three charging tips, including a micro-USB, Apple’s 30-pin connector and even the latest Lightning charger. The station itself is a tall metal pole with a three-pronged fan of 15-watt solar panels at the top. The panels charge internal 168-watt-hour lithium battery to ensure that the stations have enough power to charge your phone even if it’s night or a cloudy day.
Not only will the Street Charge stations give your cellphone necessary juice, they also have the potential to provide Wi-Fi and lighting. So as you wait for your phone to fully charge — which will take the same amount of time as using a regular outlet, according to Street Charge — you won’t have to wait in the dark.
Street Charge makes its debut today at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn. The rest of the 25 stations will be deployed across the city this summer in highly visited areas, including the Brooklyn Bridge Park, Coney Island, Riverside Park, Rockaways, Summerstage in Central Park, Randall’s Island, Governor’s Island, Union Square, and Hudson River Park.
As for the rest of us outside of the Big Apple, we’ll just have to settle for hefty battery packs or dead phones for now.