Solar Powered Golf Carts: Vehicular Innovation
Tyson Lewis | March 16, 2023
Warren Wilson College (WWC) is in the process of converting its golf carts from gas or propane-driven vehicles to solar-powered vehicles instead. One part of the process was the installation itself along with the question of how they work.
They work very well according to paint crew supervisor and golf cart user David Marshall.
“It's faster,” Marshall said. “To be honest, I think the golf carts are the most fun part of Warren Wilson. You know, it seems like everybody likes riding around on the golf cart. So I hope you know, one day, a whole bunch of them would be fun, you know?”
Aside from the golf carts being fun and being made even more fun in the process, there are also practical matters.
“The idea is, once we get, you know, testing it out, and once we get all the kinks worked out of a couple of them, [campus] will know fully what we need to do,” Marshall said. “Put battery heaters on it, or whatever, and then go from there. But I think it's a good idea. And it saves the college some money.”
Marshall shared that it takes a little getting used to having solar panels on top as he used to lean ladders against the carts.
“You have to pick where you park to make sure that this panel,” Marshall said. “And that's kind of weird. Sometimes I forget, I'll just pull up and want to jump out. And I gotta look and say, oh, okay, I gotta turn it this way”
As per the matter of installation, carpentry maintenance supervisor Andy Dennison works from the auto shop to install these panels. A project that he as well as many students is excited to be implemented on campus.
“I've been learning right beside the students,” Dennison said. “ Because I've been trying to set up solar panels at my house, and just starting with one small one and seeing how much you can run off of it. And just learning as I go Keith's been the biggest asset, you know, he's the brains behind all of it. So we're more of the mechanical side.”
Keith is an off-campus contractor who works on golf carts.
Dennison comments on the learning curve in putting solar panels on the golf carts as well as the amount of time that it takes to install them.
“It's pretty involved, but once you do a few, it's pretty simple,” Dennison said. “I mean, it's just swapping out parts. Keith made a new electrical box that he just showed me, a nice waterproof box. So you can do a lot of the work ahead of time as far as getting the box wired, and where we can do conversions quicker in the future.”
As more and more of the allotted 20 carts are converted to solar panels, Dennison talks about the implications of installing more sustainable energy on campus.