Check out Charlottetown's first solar phone-charging station

What's believed to be Charlottetown's first solar phone-charging station is now available to the public.

The station was brought to fruition by two engineers, Dave Brothers of Frontier Power Systems and Valentine Gomez of Coles Associates, who are with Fusion Charlottetown, a group for young professionals in the city.

"You can just plug your phone in and leave it on a ledge for a few minutes to get some juice," Brothers said.

• Charlottetown's young adults rank their to-do list for the city this year

• Find out which projects are getting micro-grants from Charlottetown

The technical parts of the station were put together by Brothers and Gomez, after Fusion received a $2,500 micro-grant from the City of Charlottetown.

Shelves and plants

The engineers then handed the project to Birdmouse, an Island company that creates unique designs from reclaimed wood. Birdmouse created shelves to place phones and added rows of plants down the front that would benefit from rainfall sluicing off the charger's panel.

I was disappointed. We put a lot of effort into it. Dave Brothers

"Pretty simple, actually," Brothers said of the design.

The solar panel collects the light, which goes through what's called a charge controller before being stored in a 12-volt deep-cycle battery, like ones in RVs and boats.

The power can be tapped into via six USB ports on the outside of the station that are hooked up to an inverter, "the same inverter you'd buy to plug into your car to watch a movie," Brothers explained.

• Solar backpacks and other hot gadgets for your coolest summer ever

Rejected for Victoria Park

The idea was originally that the station would be placed in a public space like a street corner or city park.

Instead, it's in front of Upstreet Craft Brewing on Allen Street available to the public to use, stresses the brewery's management, but people must walk through the brewery, and after 8 p.m. no minors are allowed.

Fusion applied to the city in June to place the station in Victoria Park near the Kiwanis Dairy Bar, but a standing committee rejected the proposal, writing in its report they "felt the structure appeared to be incomplete and they did not believe it was a suitable-looking structure for Victoria Park."

"I was disappointed,"Brother said. "We put a lot of effort into it."

"We tried to place where it would be used the most, but then also cross-reference that with which areas had the best amount of sunlight," added Gomez.

Not completed?

The committee "wasn't convinced that Victoria Park was the right location for this device," said Coun. Mitchell Tweel, chair of Charlottetown's Parks, Recreation and Leisure Activities Committee, in an interview.

"The committee felt, and staff also ... that particular device wasn't completed," Tweel added.

It was completed, the engineers said, except for information panels they plan for the sides. They partly blame a hastily-taken photograph in a dark garage for failing to convince the committee ofthe charger's benefits.

Hoping for more

The city is willing to explore other locations for the charging station, Tweel said, noting there are a lot of demands on Victoria Park and not all can be met.

The location at Upstreet is fine for now, the engineers said, and the brewery is pleased to have it.

The station is designed to be portable, Gomez noted, so if someone wanted to take it to a music festival it could be well-used.

• 'Taxing the sun that's hitting your roof': Solar energy proponent questions tax rules
• Montague considering solar farm for local rink

Gomez would love to see the city creating several of the stations and inviting local artists to design their own versions.

"With Winnipeg, in The Forks, and in Toronto, they have them all over and they kind of dot the city," Gomez said. "It would be nice to see the city come around and try to get maybe another one built for out in Victoria Park or maybe even out by Peake's [Quay]."

"We'll see what kind of feedback it gets and if there's more interest, who knows?" Brothers added.

The charging station will be taken inside for the winter months, as leaving it outside would shorten its life, the engineers said.

The total cost of the project was about $3,500, they said.

• MORE P.E.I. NEWS|Chicken owner pushes back on city livestock bylaw
• MORE P.E.I. NEWS|Atlantic university enrolments down, but UPEI bucking trend