Europe-wide Green eMotion Initiative to pave the way for electromobility

The European Commission has kicked off a 4 year cross-European initiative to promote electromobility. The 42 partners in the initiative comprising industrial companies and automobile manufacturers, utilities, municipalities, universities, and technology and research institutions are to input, exchange and expand their know-how and experience in selected regions within Europe. “Electromobility will make an important contribution toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Green eMotion is intended to ensure the fast-track success of electric vehicles,” said Siim Kallas, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner responsible for Transport. The project volume has been budgeted at EUR 42 million, of which the EU will contribute as much as EUR 24 million.

The partners in the initiative are to accumulate experience with electromobility in existing and new test regions within Europe and refine the technology. Key issue is the development of European processes, standards and IT solutions that allow customers of electric vehicles easy and seamless access to charging infrastructure and related services throughout the European Union. Standardization is also the key factor for a fast and cost-efficient European rollout of electromobility. The total number of charging spots within the existing demonstration regions will be more than 10,000, spread over Europe.   

“The local concepts applied to date, in which experience was accumulated in specific demonstration regions, will now be bundled in cross-European trials. The aim is to pave the way for electromobility throughout Europe. This will require standards for infrastructure, networking and IT,” said Heike Barlag from Siemens, who coordinates the Green eMotion project. “By bundling individual activities in a major partner initiative we’re gaining momentum and transparency, and ensuring the coordinated development of electromobility.” Experience with cars, busses and two-wheelers with pure electric drive systems and as hybrid vehicles is to be gathered in the Green eMotion project. Special aspects in some of the demonstration regions include battery swapping and DC charging as well as smart grid integration, cross-border traffic, different payment systems and the testing of alternative business models.

ECN Dutch partner in Green eMotion
The Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) is partner in the Green eMotion consortium,  the only one from the Netherlands. Electric mobility is one of the key research areas of ECN when it comes to the de-carbonization of the transport sector. Within Green eMotion, both departments Efficiency & Infrastructure (E&I) and Policy Studies (PS) are working on the project. Thereby E&I focuses on standardization aspects between the power grid and the vehicles, while PS will be the leading project partner to create the EU roadmap for electromobility. 

Other partners
The partners in the Green eMotion Initiative are the industrial companies Alstom, Better Place, Bosch, IBM and Siemens, the utilities Danish Energy Association, EDF, Endesa, Enel, ESB, Eurelectric, Iberdrola, RWE and PPC, the automobile manufacturers BMW, Daimler, Micro-Vett, Nissan and Renault, the municipalities Barcelona, Berlin, Bornholm, Copenhagen, Cork, Dublin (represented by the energy agency Codema), Malaga, Malmo and Rome,  the universities and research institutions Cartif, Cidaut, CTL, DTU, Imperial, IREC, RSE, TCD and Tecnalia, and the technology institutions DTI, fka and TÜV NORD.

More information
For more information please contact ECN Coordinator Transport Ingo Bunzeck, telephone:+31 224-568263, email: bunzeck@remove-this-part-ecn.nl.

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