Image Credit : Jeffrey Hoffman
Project Overview
In September 2013, Simply Grid launched a food cart electrification pilot in New York City's Union Square. This is the first example of a mobile food vendor on New York City’s public streets using grid electricity rather than a noisy, polluting generator. The pilot was launched in conjunction with the New York City Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Con Edison, the NYC Department of Transportation, and Closed Loop Advisors.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Simply Grid provides a solution for on demand access to grid electricity. Our proprietary technology enables access to on-site, self-service electricity via industry standard charging stations and in-wall outlets for customers who initiate service with their mobile phones.
Project Brief
Several thousand mobile food vendors operate on the streets of New York City every day, and they traditionally rely on noisy, expensive, and polluting generators to power their operations. These generators are expensive to operate and create the worst kind of pollution in an urban environment as they are two stroke engines with no catalytic converters which only partially ignite their fuel. Simply put, this is the pollution which causes cancer. In effect, the vendor is sitting on top of a motorbike in a metal box 15 hours per day serving food to the general public. They Mayor's Office was exploring opportunities to deploy a curb-side electrification project, and they decided to partner with Simply Grid to electrify a food vendor in the center of Manhattan.
Project Innovation/Need
Simply Grid's technology allows lot owners and municipalities to provide grid electricity to mobile food vendors which makes them cleaner, quieter, and more profitable. Electricity is made available to these vendors via outlets in industry standard electricity pedestals which have been customized with proprietary metering controllers. The controllers connect wirelessly to Simply Grid’s cloud-based platform which manages customer accounts, metering, and billing. The system allows vendors to initiate service with their mobile phones and connect to the electric grid with cables they already use with their generators. Grid electricity is a significantly cheaper energy source for food vendors, and it also eliminates the pollution and noise associated with running a generator.
Design Challenge
The biggest challenge with the project was bringing all the team members together to agree on the solution. It is a Herculean task to get any street furniture installed on the sidewalks of New York City. In order to make this project a success, it was necessary to bring together all the key players into a partnership where each entity would benefit from the project. With the Mayor's Office in the lead, we were able to bring Con Edison (the local utility) and the City's Department of Transportation (which manages all projects on the City's streets) into the fold in order to execute the project and make it a success.
Future Impact
To begin the experience, a mobile food vendor would position his cart next to the electricity pedestal. He then sends a text message to our cloud based server with the outlet number he wishes to use and the word "ON". The cloud based server tells the pedestal to turn on the electricity and the vendor plugs into the pedestal outlet using the same cable he would have used with his generator. Once he are done using the electricity, he sends another text message with the outlet number and the word "OFF". The cloud based server tells the pedestal to turn off the electricity and the vendor's credit card is billed for the amount of time he was using the pedestal. To see the user experience, please view the video associated with our entry.
Service - Corporate
This award celebrates creative and innovative solution design for the successful delivery and provision of services. Consideration given to system integration, user experience, product design
More Details