Public, solar charger for empty batteries | Cargador solar público para baterías vacías

It has happened to almost everyone at least once that your mobile phone’s battery empties while in a street. Wishing to prove that solar energy has not been exploited enough, a group of students of Belgrade University constructed the first public solar charger for mobile phones in the world.

The invention called “The Strawberry tree” was launch in Serbia in the October of 2010 as it was installed in Obrenovac’s city center, in the Serbian city square. This technological giant regularly charges mobile phone batteries with clean energy produced from the sun. It is important to mention that for the short period of time it is working, it has already been awarded in Serbia as well as abroad.

The Strawberry Energy team invented, designed and developed the project, and then constructed and installed completely on its own the solar charger. In the early period of the creation and work, the project was supported by the Business Technology Incubator of Technical Faculties Belgrade. Project’s significance was recognized by the Energy Efficiency Agency of Serbia.

Living in a digitally connected world of constant communication, the number of mobile phones and other portable multimedia devices is growing constantly. All those devices require a certain amount of energy to work and when the battery empties, it leads to an unpleasant situation.

The solar charger for mobile phones, used in public busy places such as streets, parks and squares, represents a solution to the new, social matter. Inventions like this one offers to citizens the possibility to charge their mobile devices when they need it most – when they are far from home and stuck with a dead battery.

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Estás fuera, lejos de casa, desesperado porque la batería de tu teléfono móvil está vacía y tienes varias llamadas pendientes. Los ciudadanos de Belgrado ya no tienen por qué preocuparse: pueden cargarla gratis en la calle con un dispositivo que funciona con energía solar.

Arquitectónicamente, este cargador es muy parecido a un árbol, de ahí su nombre, Strawberry Tree. Los inventores se basaron en la manera en la que los árboles buscan la energía del sol para producir oxígeno y así inspirarse en la mejor manera de aprovechar la energía solar. Ésta se recoge en paneles solares y se convierte en energía eléctrica para los teléfonos.

La noche tampoco es un problema porque la energía que se produce durante el día y no se gasta, se almacena. El principal objetivo de estos estudiantes es acercar las energías renovables a todas las personas y lo hacen con un cargador que alcanza una eficacia energética del 80%, frente al 20% de los cargadores normales.

El Strawberry Tree ha sido ideado por un equipo de ocho estudiantes de electrotécnica, mecánica y arquitectura. El año pasado su invento fue premiado en Bruselas, en la competición EU Sustainable Energy Europe, sobre la reducción del consumo de energía, así como en varios reconocimientos en Serbia.

Sources and images: Emol