Dundee is continuing on its road to electric vehicle charging success with more sites to be launched in this environmentally-friendly city.
Following on from the success of its two multi-storey car park charging hubs – which are located at Greenmarket and Olympia – a third and final hub will be opening by the end of the year. This is a further boost to the electric vehicle infrastructure in Dundee.
To date, both sites at Greenmarket and Olympia have proved successful with an encouraging uptake of electric car drivers in the city using the fixed charging points at the multi-storeys.
The first charging hubs at Greenmarket and Olympia
Greemarket was the first of three to built in Dundee when it arrived In September 2019. Located at the top level of Greenmarket multi-storey car park, it has 20 charging bays and 7kw chargers. Solar canopies across the bays provide up to 41kw of energy.
The hub also has an innovative battery storage system, so power created by the solar panels can be saved and used at a later time.
Then in January 2021, the Olympia hub was created and launched at top level of the Olympia multi-storey car park with 20 bays and 10 7kw chargers, all powered by solar. It also boasts an innovative battery storage system.
The new hub at Gellatly Street launches
Now, drivers of electric cars in the city (or those who are visiting Dundee), can take advantage of a new charging hub at Gellatly Street multi-storey, which will have charge points with a total power requirement of around 440kVa. Because of a ‘restricted grid supply’, this site presented its challenges, but the scope of the solar and battery provision at this site will be increased, thus making best use of energy generated by solar power and stored within the battery.
Now these three multi-storey sites provide a total of 60 charge point connections across the city.
Drive Dundee Electric, the city’s EV campaign aimed at residents and businesses of Dundee, hopes that as more than 50% of the population don’t have a driveway or off-street parking to enable EV charging, the trio of charging hubs will allow those households to consider an EV as a feasible choice in the future.
Remember the pop-up chargers too
Of course, the three multi-storey sites are just the tip of the iceberg as Dundee city centre streets have recently benefited from the addition of pop-up charging points too. The high-tech devices, which sit around one metre beneath the ground, are controlled by an app and are the brainchild of Urban Electric, which brought the pop-ups to the city.
The first of Dundee’s popup EV charge points was installed on the Waterfront at the V&A museum earlier this year, with more at South Victoria Dock Road.
All four projects have been launched in the last few years and, looking to the future, there are more exciting electric vehicle charge plans to come with a massive development/expansion to be opened at Dundee City Council’s Clepington Road depot sometime 2022.
Cleppington Road depot expansion
Already the Clepington Road site is a hugely successful operation and is home to one of Scotland’s most used charging points. Since its installation, the most used point was the council’s public works department in Clepington Road which was used 5,958 times!
Councillor Mark Flynn, convener of city development at Dundee City Council, said: “With the eyes of the world on Scotland during and after COP26 climate summit, the conversations going on around how individuals can make a positive difference are as loud as they have ever been.
“Our contribution to that in Dundee is to provide infrastructure to support and encourage electric vehicle use and ownership by providing a robust and accessible charging infrastructure for residents and visitors.”
The multi-storey EV charging hubs were funded by the Low Carbon Travel and Transport Challenge Fun, established by Transport Scotland from funds awarded under European Regional Development Fund 2014-20 programme and Transport Scotland funding to support an increased proportion of ultra-low emission vehicles on Scotland’s roads.
The Scottish Government is the Managing Authority for the European Structural Funds 2014-20 Programme.
Dundee impresses the world with its EV offering
The city of Dundee hosted a major event earlier this month as part of COP26 to encourage other nations to ‘join the EV revolution’.
The two-day Electric Vehicle Initiative (EVI) Pilot City Forum was staged at the city’s Apex Hotel on November 8th and 9th to spark discussions between leading global cities on the uptake of electric mobility.
Given that it is already leading the way as an ‘electric city’, there was no better city to host the event than Dundee. So, as part of the programme of events, a Tour of Dundee City was top of the agenda. This showcased the city’s latest development in EV infrastructure and included a number of site visits for delegates.
My personal highlight was the Dundee city tour of EV charging stations – what I saw and experienced from all the charging hubs will stay with me for ages to come.
One attendee, Ghanaian energy analyst Doris Edem Agbevivi was blown away by the city’s setup.
The project coordinator for Ghana’s E-mobility Initiative said: “In Ghana, like many other African countries, we are at the beginning of an electric vehicle revolution and the conference was the perfect opportunity to learn, interact and network.
“It gave me a fast track opportunity to travel to several countries to learn from them all from a conference room – a crash course of E-mobility: vehicles, charging and international collaboration.
“My personal highlight was the Dundee city tour of EV charging stations – what I saw and experienced from all the charging hubs will stay with me for ages to come. I appreciate the city council for allowing us to see the fruit of its 11 years of work.”
Councillor Mark Flynn spoke at the forum before discussions seeking to answer questions including ‘what policies are most urgently needed to enable greater EV adoption in cities?’
A number of other guest speakers attended and they included Transport Scotland, Dundee City Council, SSE, Urban Foresight, OZEV and SWARCO, which has been a big player in Dundee’s EV infrastructure and a huge supporter of the Drive Dundee Electric campaign.
The form was part of the Electric Vehicles Initiative (EVI) Global EV Pilot City Programme which aims to build a network of at least 100 cities to work together on the promotion of electric mobility.
5 things that may surprise you about Dundee’s EV charging
- Dundee was the first city in Scotland to have a rapid charging hub
- To date, Dundee’s chargers have supplied 11,625 kWh of energy, enough to power close to 35,000 EV miles
- With more pop-up hubs going live since late summer, Dundee is now powering over 10,000 EV miles per month
- To date, Dundee has 138 unique users using the hubs
- With more pop-up hubs live since late summer, Dundee is now averaging over 40 unique users per month and six sessions per day which is continuing to rise.
To find out more about the electric vehicle infrastructure in Dundee visit the Drive Dundee Electric campaign website.
