The old traditional red phone boxes in London are being renewed with a new aim: charge mobile phones exploiting solar energy. The new boxes become literally green in colour and acquire a sustainable feature by becoming green renewable energy providers. The first renewed phone box was unveiled this week on Tottenham Court Road.

The service provided is free of charge, although adverts are showed to the users who are waiting for their phone to charge.

It represents an innovative and useful solution for the old red boxes that lately fall in disuse, although some of them are being fitted with medical equipment or reinvented as libraries.

The key features of the new boxes can be resumed as: the green painting of the box and the roof-mounted 86cm solar panel, for the external perspective, and a variety of charging stations with slots for different phone’s models and a screen showing adverts, from the internal point of view.

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The boxes are locked overnight and maintained daily, with the advertising screen reinforced to deter vandals. The idea came from two geography students of the London School of Economics who were interested in giving uses to public spaces. Each box can charge up to 100 phones a day, charging about 20% of the battery in 10 minutes. The average number of people using is six per hour, showing the effective need of the new charging stations in a society outnumbered by smartphones that usually, due to the many use and characteristics, end up exhausting the battery early in the day.

This new creation raise the attention on the fact that technology continues to change according to society’s needs and suggests a debate about tradition and innovation, with tradition usually obliged to step down to progress. The new boxes are indeed useful and will probably benefit many people, even though evoking a nostalgic feeling toward the traditional boxes that featured many movies and postcards, representing one of the peculiar symbols of London, and the United Kingdom in general.

Written by: Pietro Paolo Frigenti