Bi-directional charging cars Utrecht, city-wide roll-out
About this good practice
Utrecht is world’s first municipality with the citywide roll-out of a bidirectional charging system for electric cars, a very sustainable electricity system.
Resources needed
The smart solar charging concept is currently commercially operated by LomboXnet in the framework of a municipal concession, without funding. In the start-up phase 50% of the costs were covered by public co-funding: Horizon 2020 (IRIS project) or “Kansen voor West II” (ERDF; Smart Solar Charging).
Evidence of success
In 2019 bi-directional charging entered the commercial phase, which made Utrecht decide the city-wide roll-out of this concept. Now about 500 of the 1000 charging points in Utrecht are bi-directional ones. Most of them (300) are assigned to shared cars, where they evidently reduce CO2e emissions because of less [carbon] car-kms, lifecycle emissions and space requirement. The concept has also been implemented outside of Utrecht, like in Zeist (large charging parking area with solar panel roof).
Potential for learning or transfer
Municipalities might consider to adopt bi-directional charging, given:
1) its potential to accelerate CO2e reduction by solving current obstacles of the energy transition (see following bullet);
2) its benefits for a successful energy transition: more storage capacity for green electricity, and balanced electricity grid;
3) the fact that a smart charging point can be inserted in any city, also where other electrification strategies have already started;
4) the demonstrated fruitful cooperation of the municipality, housing, mobility, energy firms and car builders (up to now mainly for shared cars) in planning, building and operating the system.
Acceleration as in bullet 1 and benefits as in bullet 2 are needed in many cities. Bullet 3 underlines the transferability to other European cities, bullet 4 illustrates that the complex cooperation required is manageable.