Gary Zhou 
Tesla apparently made an Earth Day announcement that flew under the radar: The automaker intends to power all Supercharger stations with renewable energy this year.
The electric vehicle revolution needs to be powered by renewable energy in order for its full positive effect on the environment to be felt.
It’s why Tesla also has a solar and energy storage business to accelerate renewable energy adoption.
Most of the charging happens at home, and going with residential solar will literally result in your electric car driving on sunlight, but public charging stations also need to be powered by renewable energy.
Now we have learned that Tesla is planning to make some important progress on that front this year.
On Earth Day, Justin Lange, Tesla’s market lead for Superchargers in the mid-Atlantic, posted some interesting statistics about Tesla’s Supercharger network:
But the most interesting piece of information here is that Tesla apparently plans for “all Supercharger energy to be 100% renewable in 2021.”
Tesla does have some solar power at some Supercharger stations, but for the most part, its charging stations are powered by the grid and from whatever source of electricity owned by the local utilities.
Some electric utilities already get all their power from renewable energy, so the charging stations on their networks are powered by renewable energy.
For example, in Quebec, all of Tesla’s Superchargers are powered by Hydro Quebec’s hydropower electricity.
Adding solar power at the station is not the only solution for places where the grid is powered by fossil fuels.
For example, Rivian recently announced its own charging network, which it claims will be solely powered by renewable energy. However, the automaker said that it will be directly powered by renewables where possible and through renewable energy certificates where it’s not possible.
It’s not clear what will Tesla’s approach be with this new goal to power the entire Supercharger network with renewable energy this year.
In 2017, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla plans to add solar and batteries to all Supercharger stations and eventually disconnect most of them from the grid.
This has yet to happen.
Tesla currently operates the largest global electric vehicle charging network with over 24,000 Superchargers at over 2,700 locations around the world.
