New solar charging stations are popping up at CCU

After a long afternoon of texting, tweeting and watching videos on Facebook, Coastal Carolina University junior Mikayla Morris realized her smart phone was almost out of battery power. Not wanting to be inside on such a nice sunny day, she decided to sit underneath one of the new Powersol umbrellas on Prince Lawn and charge up.

Sustain Coastal, the campus initiative for making CCU an environmentally sustainable university, purchased two new umbrellas to encourage students and faculty/staff to charge their devices with clean, renewable energy.

At first glance the umbrellas appear to be just a shady spot for students to relax outdoors, but there is much more to them. There are three weatherproofed USB ports in the base of each umbrella, which are powered by the solar panels on the very top. Sensors located in the charging ports know when mobile devices are fully charged in order to keep any energy from being wasted. There is also an LED display that indicates how much solar energy is currently stored for charging.

ZON Technology makes the Powersol umbrella solar charging stations. The company strives to create environmentally friendly products that reduce the carbon footprint on the environment and found 15 percent of the energy used on the planet is from electronic devices like smart phones and that number will double by 2020.

For more information on the umbrellas or campus sustainability, contact Jeremy Monday, sustainability coordinator, at 843-349-6954 or jmonday1@coastal.edu.