Urban Green Energy (UGE) and General Electric introduced the Sanya Skypump, an Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station that can be powered by wind, solar or a combination of both, and the grid. The device is based on GE’s WattStation EV charger and UGE’s Sanya hybrid wind and solar-powered streetlamp.

“There will be three pilot projects by the end of the year,” said Mateo Chaskel, assistant vice president of engineering at UGE.

The three pilots will be introduced in New York City, Beijing and Barcelona, he said. The companies will roll the combined solution out worldwide in early 2012.

The device is being developed to further the charging structure for electric vehicles, which GE and UGE consider a challenge to further adoption of EVs. The Skypump was designed to fit alongside roads and in parking lots, including those already being fitted with Sanya street lights, according to UGE.

“Building upon the success of the GE WattStation, GE continuously is seeking evolutionary EV solutions,” Michael Mahan, product general manager at GE Energy Industrial Solutions, said in a press release. “By marrying the elegant design of UGE’s Sanya Streetlamp with the GE WattStation, we have enabled the further adoption of electric vehicles by making access to renewable power easier.”

The device is normally powered by wind, according to Chaskel. But it was designed to allow for photovoltaics as well.

“There would be a component we’d recommend installing where there’s not adequate wind,” he said. That component is an inverter, which can handle both the AC power from the 4 kilowatt wind turbine and the DC power from the photovoltaics.

The system also is tied into the grid so it can charge a vehicle when there’s no wind and solar. And during periods when it’s not being used to charge vehicles, the wind and solar can feed electricity back into the grid.

UGE and GE are looking at the charging station for commercial applications, according to Chaskel.

The devices could be installed by a city or shopping center to encourage the use of EVs. It’s designed to offer EV owners a quick charge for about 15 to 20 minutes.

“The way we’ve envisioned it is kind of like an extra boost,” he said.

EV owners will be able to pay for the electricity they use via a card reader, like at a gas station.

This is the first partnership between UGE and GE, Chaskel said.

Although it seems like a project that could have evolved out of GE’s ecomagination challenge, it wasn’t, according to Chaskel.