Dubai Is Using Palm Trees to Charge Your Phone

The UAE's most populous city is harnessing its most abundant resource—sunshine—to provide WiFi and charging outlets on beaches and streets.

Date palms are a familiar feature in the United Arab Emirates. Man-made palms? Not so much. This will soon change as a sustainable-energy company Smart Palm is set to install 103 faux-date-palm solar collectors as a creative, eco-friendly way to provide connectivity, data, energy, and shade in Dubai. According to Fast Company, Smart Palm and the Dubai Municipality have partnered to erect two 20-foot charging "trees," one on Surf Beach and another in Zabeel Park so far.

The Smart Palm's fronds are—you guessed it—topped with photovoltaic panels which take in and store energy from the sun. The trunk and platform of the stylized white-metal and wooden trees are equipped with W-iFi (reaching devices up to 300 feet away) and eight "charging points" for visitors to plug into the electricity created by the Smart Palm and power up their devices at speeds 2.5 times faster than a normal outlet.


Other cities have also ventured into the realm of public solar-energy charging stations. In 2013, New York City collaborated with AT&T to install 25 free, solar-powered charging poles around the city, keeping urbanites' smartphone batteries in the green. San Francisco now has its own solar energy stations as well, from San Diego's Envision Solar. Three locations debuted earlier this year, and now provide free solar energy for the charging of electric cars. It seems like the urban energy of the future will be delivered sunny-side up.

source:cntraveler