Regional News

A TROLLEYMOTION workshop meeting and the presentation to the City of Parma and the public of the first of 9 electric trolleybuses based on the NEW Van Hool Multiple Propulsion Platform Exqui.City18T took place in Parma recently. The bus features Vossloh Kiepe traction equipment including supercapacitors to regenerate the braking energy of the bus.  It has many unique features such as an attractive tramlook design, separate enclosed drivers’ compartment, central led roof lighting and electronic brakes, very large translucent window surfaces, electronic airconditioning, central roof heating and ventilation system.  It will be in service from September 2012 in the City of Parma.  TEP Parma is one of the partners in the european funded TROLLEY project. For more information, you can consult the website of TEP Parma www.tep.pr.it and www.crt.unige.it.

On April 3 the German Government communicated the four selected Schaufenster Regions for Electro-mobility (instead of the five that were annouced earlier) receiving a total of  € 180 mln in the coming 3 years (max 50 mln per region) . The four winning regions are Baden Wuerttemberg, Bayern and Sachsen, Berlin-Brandenburg and Niedersachsen. Ford and Opel are not participating and also battery switch systems, that were planned on a corridor between Berlin and Denmark did not make the final round. Other regions will continue their activities as planned like North Rhine-Westphalia who will develop a 12 km long electric corridor corridor  to their RWTH campus in Aachen. The impression is that as a consequence of this E-mobil competition between the 23 regions, an increasing number of new electro-mobility activities will  be developed in the coming years. Download an overview with more details on the Schaufenster Regions below.

ELYGRID Project exhibits its website, www.elygrid.com, which is conceived as a tool to provide general information of the project, involve partners and develop main objectives.

Telekom Austria has announced plans to turn old telephone boxes into recharging stations for electric cars. During the test phase the service will be free of charge. 

A calculator to to assess the impact of electric vehicles on an area’s grid in the presence of other low carbon technologies on the electricity nets was developed through a  collaboration between the Northumbria University and the Charge your Car project in NE England, member of HyER. The Charge your Car project  involves over 60 partners in  North East England  including twelve local authorities, private businesses, transport providers, academia, retailers, business park operators, fleet operators and electricity distributors and suppliers.  The  tool facilitates informed planning of the infrastructure for electric vehicles. The project for developing the tool was led by Dr Ghanim Putrus, Reader in Electrical Power Engineering in the School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences at Northumbria University. “The resource will help policy-makers, developers and network operators to analyse the impact of electric vehicles in the presence of micro generators and low carbon technologies. It will help to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. This tool will help to build the infrastructure around electric cars and can be used inside and outside the region, as well as in international contexts,” he said. The North East has been selected to become the UK’s first low carbon economic area for ultra-low [...]

Under the azure skies of the Italian Riviera,  the latest EU Fuel Cell Hydrogen bus project,  High V.LO-City, Cities speeding up the integration of hydrogen buses in public fleets,  in European bus operations, was inaugurated by the president of the Provice of Imperia on March 23, 2012.  The five year project, with a total budget of 31,5 mln co-financed by the Fuel Cell Hydrogen Joint Undertaking Program (FCH JU)  involves three regions such as Flanders (V), Liguria (L) and ScOtland (O) who will  put each five  fuel cell hybrid  (FCH) buses  in daily service under different climate and busroute conditions.

The Danish Government has announced a new Energy Plan 2020 

Berlin and Vancouver, British Columbia, March 13, 2012 Globe 2012: Major investments and new partnerships highlight growing demand in Germany Canadian fuel cell maker Ballard has opened its European headquarters in Germany. Fuji is delivering its first fuel cell exports there. And in recent weeks, US-based fuel cell power plant manufacturer FuelCell Energy announced a partnership with renowned German research institute Fraunhofer IKTS. At this year’s Globe 2012, the biennial conference and trade fair on business and the environment, Germany Trade & Invest experts will highlight business opportunities inGermany’s quickly growing market for fuel cells. “We have seen these developments coming for a long time, but finally the market conditions for fuel cells are just right. Germany’s share of renewable energies is rising so quickly that energy storage is urgently needed. In Germany, fuel cell companies have a chance to be in the right place at the right time,” said Raphael Goldstein, energy storage expert at Germany Trade & Invest in Berlin. Innovative companies from all over the world are looking to Europe’s largest market as a testing ground for their technologies and market strategies. Germany’s renewable energy share in the electricity mix is already greater than 20 percent. The increase of fluctuating energy sources, such as wind and solar, increases the demand for storage. “The innovation strength of Germany makes our presence there crucial. The [...]

On March 15 2012 the first fast recharging sytem in Italy was inaugurated at th Monza location of the supermarket chain IPER. 

Germany is investigating the potential of converting wind power to hydrogen as an energy source in the wake of the country’s decision to move away from nuclear power after the Fukashima disaster a year ago. The European Union has put in place a number of strategies aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions and shifting to sustainable fuels such as hydrogen. Berlin has offered €200 million between 2011 and 2014 for research into energy storage, generating strong competition for funds. Last year Enertrag AG began operating one of Germany’s first hybrid plants to generate wind power and convert it into hydrogen with the help of its partners Vattenfall, Total and Deutsche Bahn. Their investment has been spurred by EU targets for member states to source 35% of their electricity mixes to renewables by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Enertrag plans to build 10MW of hydrogen conversion capacity from 2015 onwards. The three turbines at the Enertrag plant generate up to 6MW of power. That energy is then passed through water and split into oxygen and hydrogen via an electrolyser, which is housed in a supersized garage and stored in five tanks. The technology effectively turns wind into a 24 hour power [...]