Back in March 2009, Sanyo launched a new line-up of Eneloop Electric back alongside its first Solar Parking for Electric bike, and today, just a few minutes from where I live, Sanyo inaugurate another Solar Parking as well as providing 100 of Sanyo Eneloop Bike as “Community bicycles” offered by the Setagaya Ward to people who need/desire to use such bike (for a fee of course).

Now the major selling point of this station is its capacity to be fully independent of any conventional power source and can be built virtually anywhere.
Thanks to Sanyo advanced solar panel installed on top of the roof of the Bicycle parking, the converted solar energy will be redistributed to each elements, including the LED Lighting, necessary to run this operation as well as being stored in separated Backup Batteries (The black Box in the Photo Gallery) aimed to provide an “Always” on experience whether at night or during low solar activities, to the parking lot itself and in order to charging each bicycles batteries stored in a dedicated storage.

A nice concept that will definitively gain some momentum across Japan and possibly worldwide like in Paris with Vélib’ or Lyon with its Vélo’V