With the winner to be revealed before the end of the month, the US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced the latest partner to join the US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Smart City Challenge, which will create a fully integrated, first-of-its-kind city that uses data, technology and creativity to shape how people and goods move in the future.
The largest manufacturer of mobile solar technology in the USA, DC Solar Solutions, has joined the seven other Challenge partners that are all offering to provide products and services to the winning city, and support to the six runners up. Under the new partnership, DC Solar will offer the winning city US$1.5m worth of electric vehicle (EV) chargers and mobile solar generators, in order to help them define what it means to be a ‘Smart City’ and become the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative and sustainable technologies.
In addition to offering US$1.5m in mobile solar products to the winning city, DC Solar will assist all seven finalist cities in building strategies for charging infrastructure to encourage and facilitate the adoption of EVs by individuals, businesses and municipalities. The California-based company offers a range of solar-powered EV charging stations that are integrated with ChargePoint, the world’s largest and most open EV charging network. DC Solar will also help these cities identify applications for its low-cost mobile solar technology, including the upgrading of off-grid power generators from diesel to solar. The company’s portfolio of solar-powered generators offer a sustainable solution to environmentally conscious customers for emergency use, events, telecommunications and construction sites.
“One of the key findings of our ‘Beyond Traffic’ report is that climate change will play an increasingly significant role when it comes to how our infrastructure is built in the near future,” said Foxx. “This exciting new partnership will provide each of the Smart City Challenge finalists with the additional resources they need to carry out their bold visions of building clean, sustainable and resilient transportation systems that are equipped to overcome the challenges of the coming decades.”
Jeff Carpoff, DC Solar’s CEO, commented, “The Smart City Challenge is an exciting initiative, and we are proud to be named a partner with the USDOT. We applaud Secretary Foxx’s leadership in launching such an innovative program that, over time, we hope will become a model for encouraging clean technologies throughout the USA.”
USDOT has been working with each finalist city to connect them with private, public and non-profit partnerships that can support their final proposals with technical assistance. In addition to DC Solar, other partners include: launch partner Paul G Allen’s Vulcan Inc, Amazon Web Services, Mobileye, Autodesk, Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, NXP and AT&T. Launched in December 2015, the Challenge received 78 applications from cities across the country, which have now been reduced to the seven finalists.
