As the May 22nd grand opening date continues to draw nearer, friend of the site Bioreconstruct has taken to the skies above Universal Epic Universe to provide continuing coverage of the latest construction at the park. While Team Member previews will expand this weekend, more limited previews have been going on for nearly two weeks now. That means that construction inside the park will be limited to overnight hours, but construction outside the park might be a little bit more interesting, thanks to the installation of solar panels in the parking lot.
Solar Panels Provide Shaded Parking at Epic Universe
Universal and shade: a match made in heaven. Typically, the shade comes in the form of snarky social media posts (and we fully expect the solar panels to have a feature at some point), but this time, we’re talking about actual shade. A portion of the Epic Universe parking lot will be covered by solar panels, providing shade to guests who park under the structures. Let’s take a closer look.
In this first aerial photo from Bioreconstruct, we can see just about every parking space in the nearly 40-acre parking lot. As you can see, the parking plaza is at the extreme bottom left of the photo, with an approach into the parking lot resembling that of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Our area of interest today is on the section of darker colored pavement, and the installation of some solar panel structures that will provide shaded parking.
Here’s a reverse look at the structures, which were installed recently. While not officially announced, it’s possible that the shaded structures could cover the Prime Parking area, with handicap spaces closer to the main entrance of the park. A central walkway runs between the two sides of the parking lot.
A closer look at the structures appears to show solar panels on top. It looks like the solar panels will cover 8 rows on one side of the central walkway, and likely another 7 or 8 rows on the other side of the central walkway.
The concept of using solar panels is not unique, but it’s not widely adopted, either. When it comes to Disney, there are no solar panels covering any parking spaces at the four Walt Disney World theme parks. That said, Disneyland Paris is home to the largest solar canopy plant in Europe, covering some 11,200 parking spaces.
Closer to home, Walt Disney World has extensive solar power efforts, just not anything that improves the guest experience in terms of providing shade for parking. There is a “hidden Mickey” solar farm in the middle of Walt Disney World property, with a massive 270-acre, 50+-megawatt solar facility closer to the edge of property.
We’re excited to see Universal Epic Universe embarking on a project to introduce solar panels to provide shaded parking spots, and we’re hopeful that it will not only expand at Universal, but that it’ll finally catch on at Walt Disney World.
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