A giraffe-looking electric car charging station is powered by both solar and wind

We have seen some pretty strange electric car charging solutions in the past, like solar panels deploying out of a car or chargers attached to a bear, but that’s something else.

A giraffe-looking electric car charging station powered by both solar and wind.

Sweden-based energy company Innoventum is offering the EV charging solution appropriately called ‘Giraffe 2.0’.

They describe the product:

“The Giraffe 2.0 wind-solar power station is ready to charge anything from your e-vehicle to your home with wind and solar energy. It is comprised of a wooden structure supporting 24 solar modules as well as a wind turbine mounted at a 12 metre height.”

According to the specs, the system can produce 13.8 MWh per year (10 000 – 20 000 kWh per year depending on the wind speed and insolation level)  or about 38 kWh per day:

But what is especially interesting with the concept is that by combining solar and wind, it stabilizes energy production.

Here’s the energy generation of a Giraffe 2 throughout a year:

It can be built as a standalone system for an electric vehicle charging station with either 2 level 2 connectors or 50 kW DC fast-chargers, or it can be installed to power a house or any other facilities.

The biggest setback is the cost of the system, which Innoventum says is about 55,000 euro (~$66,000 USD), but it should be eligible for solar and wind incentives where it applies.

It’s an interesting solution especially in the context that companies have been looking at ways to take charging stations off-grid for remote areas or where it can be expensive to enable high-power charging.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the automaker plans to eventually disconnect ‘almost all’ Superchargers from the grid and go solar with battery packs. Also, Renault recently introduced new electric car charging stations independently powered by used EV battery packs.

Innoventum already installed a few of those Giraffe 2.0 systems around the world. Here’s an installation video of one in Sweden: