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Tara Parla is battling Stage IV cancer, but her resolve is strong. She and her husband Jon Parla run The Passion Foundation.

The Passion Foundation builds shade structures over playgrounds across Southwest Florida, starting with Pinewoods Elementary and more recently at Three Oaks Elementary. Rayma C. Page Elementary is next on the list.

The shade structures block out as much as 97% of harmful UV rays.

Parla was first diagnosed with Stage II melanoma in 2010.

To view the story, watch the video link above.

Source: ABC 7

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Kevin Connelly wants to bravely go where no man has gone before.

He wants to use his sun-screen fabric, which he has been using to shade playgrounds and to keep the sun from burning crops in tropical environments, to enter the new world of electric car charging.

Connelly’s biggest challenge is convincing people why they would need to pull their new Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt or Smart Electric into the shade before they charge it.

He needs data that nobody has collected yet.

His Sarasota County company, Apollo Sunguard, will likely work with NASA to turn an idea that makes common sense into a scientifically proven fact.

Since 1997, when Connelly bought what is now Apollo Sunguard, he has done well in advancing the art of creating artificial shade.

Many Sarasota and Collier county parks and schools use his shade structures to help kids stay out of the sun while they are using playground equipment.

There is even one of Apollo’s artificially shady spots along the Ringling Causeway at Bird Key for boaters to use when they are rinsing off their kayaks after paddling in Sarasota Bay.

But what Connelly has in store next is a whole new business, not just a variation on a theme.

“We are marrying shade structures with the charging capability,” he says.

The batteries available today will not charge well if the car has been sitting in the hot summer sun, Connelly claims. He also thinks he will improve the driver’s range when he does hit the go-pedal by reducing the drain on batteries caused by the cabin’s air-conditioning system.

General Electric was intrigued enough that they gave Apollo the OK to become a dealer in their new line of electric charging stations, the DuraStation, and the even-fancier model that will soon follow, the WattStation.

“There are definitely some heat questions in the industry. A battery can only accept a charge as fast as it can manage the heat, so it is definitely a consideration,” said Kristina Samples, an account manager with GE Energy Industrial Solutions.

She confirmed that Apollo has an original equipment manufacturing deal to market GE charging stations.

Charging stations

The GE WattStation in one of the company’s feel-good television commercials features prototypes. The Jetson-looking WattStation, with its oval support column, is still being tooled and is months away from production.

The DuraStation, with a rectangular pedestal, will be mass-produced starting this spring, she said.

In fact, the electric cars that will gradually seep out into the retail market during the next two to three years will all have engineering solutions built into them to sense the condition of the batteries, including how hot they are, before allowing them to actually take a charge, says Sunil Chhaya. He is senior manager of electric vehicle development programs at the Electric Power Research Institute, a Palo Alto Calif., not-for-profit research outfit whose members are U.S. electric utilities.

“What the car is likely to do first is cool the batteries themselves,” Chhaya said. “Blow air, run a liquid cooling system. Regardless, the initial burst of energy will be to make sure the batteries are at a temperature to receive the power.”

During the summer, Connelly says, there is roughly a 20 degree difference between the car in the mid-day sun and the same car under one of his airy canopies, which cut off the ultraviolet rays but allow breezes to pass through.

“I can definitely see the air-conditioning point,” says Pete Hansen, whose Sarasota-based company, Evolveit Motors, specializes in converting gasoline-powered vehicles into pure electrics.

Hansen is less convinced about the need to cool off the batteries. Most are designed to run in the heat and are built into insulated boxes, to boot, he says.

Connelly would like to be able to point to a study that shows a shady spot would speed up charging, that the batteries would last longer, and that the car would have an improved range because of running on cooler batteries, coupled with the lower load from air conditioning.

But there is no such study that he is aware of.

To get past that hurdle, Connelly is in talks to provide charging stations and shade structures for side-by-side tests of shaded and unshaded electric vehicles at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

“His thought was charging under a shaded area was not only better for the charge, but also the batteries would last longer. That is a theory but it is not proven,” said Bruce Chesson, NASA’s Florida transportation officer.

An agreement to do the tests, “is in the works,” Chesson said.

In late 2010, Apollo became one of the first companies in the nation to contract with General Electric to buy GE charging stations and then resell them as part of a more elaborate setup.

The early adopter market

Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, anywhere from 2 percent to 10 percent of new car sales will be plug-ins by 2020.

Electric cars will start dribbling out into the marketplace this year, but it will not be until 2012 that they will be widely available at the retail level.

“We look at 2011 as a learning year,” said Rick Bourgoise, director of communications for smart USA, a company that will bring 250 electric versions of its small two-seater car into the U.S. this year.

But those first cars will be leased, not sold.

This year’s early adopters will be invited to turn their cars in to the company and drive out with a more efficient version, probably in summer 2012, Bourgoise said.

Like the car-makers, Connelly needs to find some early adopters.

A prime example in his mind would be a civic-minded shopping center owner who wants to make points for his environmentally conscious customers by giving electric cars preferred parking with a free booster charge while they are in the store.

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is acting as the champion for the Southwest Florida branch of a national campaign called “Project Get Ready,” which is supposed to encourage availability of charging stations so electric car owners can avoid what is already being called “range anxiety.”

That means being afraid of buying the car, or afraid of using it much, for fear of having the batteries run down at an inopportune time.

“In the short run, the charging stations will probably be used to attract customers,” says Avera Wynne, the economic development group’s planning director.

“Whole Foods has been pretty progressive in trying to put charging stations in.”

Wynne predicts the idea of offering “opportunistic charging” will spread to other retailers, such as Publix Supermarkets and Starbucks coffee shops.

Connelly figured that if he wants to sell shady charging stations, at least at first, he had better make his concept easy for architects to find out about.

He contacted the publishers of ARCAT, an authoritative directory of information on building materials for architects, specifications writers, engineers and contractors.

Connelly leafs through the thick 2011 catalog, which is also available online. He is proud of the one-page advertisement bearing the logo of his little company and the one representing one of the mightiest corporations in the world.

The architectural publishers “had to invent a new code number for us,” Connelly said.

“It didn’t exist before.”

Source

The unique curve of the X-11 Solar Eclipse is engineered to optimize shade and solar protection – reducing the damage caused by ultraviolet radiation, heat and hail. Utilizing a modular concept, the X-11 is designed to be interconnected to form infinite lengths of continuous shade without gaps in sun protection.

Parking lots are known to be major heat islands – areas that tend to be extremely warmer than their surrounding areas. This is particularly true in Arizona’s harsh climate conditions. Everyone who lives in Arizona understands the value of shade and most customers would actively seek out stores with shaded parking spots that provide a cool barrier from the hot sun. You know it’s hot when the best parking space is determined by shade instead of distance.

Apollo Sunguard’s Sunguard Shade Cloth® is known for its great strength, vibrant colors and durability. It is made of a high-density polyethylene fabric, with ultraviolet additives. The breathable desert sand color fabric shading the Fry’s parking lot allows for air flow and drops the temperature up to 20 degrees, while filtering 96% of the harmful ultraviolet radiation.

The new Fry’s Marketplace store had been closed since April while it was being transformed into Fry’s flagship Arizona supermarket. In addition to the shaded parking, the upscale store features valet parking, custom car washes, a cooking school, wine bar and expanded selections of organic produce and high-end meats. The 136,000-square-foot location offers services, products and features not available at any other Fry’s supermarkets or other stores operated by its Cincinnati-based parent, Kroger Co. This flagship store could be the first in a string of Signature Marketplaces.