Solar, Storage & Electric Taxis; Dundee demonstrates what’s doable | Fully Charged

hello and welcome to fully charged coming to you today from outside the wonderful new VNA building here in the waterside of Dundee in Scotland we've wanted to come to Dundee for a long time what the City Council are doing and what the people have done dear doing has really really set the pace for adopting electric vehicles hundreds of electric taxis here loads of people got electric cars amazing places to charge them it's a really exciting city that's seen a huge resurgence in its cultural wealth it's an amazing place tonight we're doing a live discussion show in the VNA we're very excited about that so there's only one more thing to say before we start and that is welcome to Dundee [Music] Toyland thanks very much for coming and talking to us today with the fabulous view from up here of the city of Dundee I mean because I'm just seeing wind turbines in that in the distance there what you're doing here I think is remarkable it does seem to be you know a really consistent effort by the City Council to encourage people to start using electric vehicles we really are sort of pushing the whole electric vehicle agenda and it's been gone for quite some time now you know we were one of the first councils I think in the UK to sort of invest and an electric fleet and from then it's just sort of snowballed and we've we find a lot of funding we have a place for a lot of funding streams and that to help push that on so I know I think even you know so worldwide people are looking at Dundee as a real web trailblazer so can you tell us then why a Dutch woman who drives electric vehicles is in Dundee that is a good question I'm asking myself the same questions what am I doing here I met fraser from the local government in oslo at the nordic AG summit and i was a bit surprised I was moderating this session about heroes of evey and I thought Dundee and having a solar panel charging point I was sort of intrigued by that and triggered so when he said well come over for this event tonight I was really curious so I said well coming over and I want to see what's happening in your city so that's why I'm here because the of you and you've had a good look around is it not amazing what they're doing I think he really sets an example and I like that [Music] so and this is a amazing privilege to come to something like this massive scale of it's really overwhelming that's just the sheer size of it that was an oil tanker that was converted to a static oil storage unit that without in the North Sea for many years and it's now being cleaned up and cut up and turned into razor blades or something yeah yeah so an FPS or yeah I'm sure I remember as a 14 production storage and outfit right yeah so yeah so what kind of thoughts in it and it used to be a banker and before that was out right I know you're already an interesting life so it's come to the end of its life now and it's so that is an amazing kind of business opportunity for Dungey though for one thing that you get to you know presume this is employing a lot of local people absolutely well this is the first them decommissioning project to come to Dundee so what we see those as the real sort of catalyst to know trend push the industry even more from Dundee and what we've really got one in our favor here as the marine conditions are absolutely perfect arrest tapered decommissioning work as a deep water port and that shallows the guys to to do the work that they're doing and then DIF invested very heavily in the key site here as well because that's one of the things I think you've done here which i think is really interesting is there are charging hubs in the town there are plate that car parks with loads of charges in which even if there isn't a big uptake of electric vehicles now the general public are going to be aware of that and go oh I see if you have an electric car that's where you can charge it you've gone that way around you wash yeah push the charge absolutely I mean we we have just just the last year we opened them a number of chargin hubs and around they said they saw that really it's all about being able to see it to the people of Dundee we will make it as easy as possible for you to own an electric vehicle in the future and I suppose it's arcing about a builder and they will come they purport yes but a minister I think that what is fascinating is it puts in perspective the scale of that if you like the energy transition you know if we're really going to stop burning fossil fuels even in the next hundred years the transition from this incredibly well established industry all over the world yeah just you know to change that to some other way of doing it is a big job sorry yeah so still a long way to go about I think that's why here in Dundee you can see that future and not expire viously a no-go at the point where we conceived the Commission and what going on then Dundee poor is the police yeah but in a great location for it on the east coast of Scotland yes and I think Dundee mesto probably in the naiton 70s trend alright so it wasn't you didn't really have a lot of that happening he didn't I didn't do I commented on do you old or we had the opportunities for that to happen whatever reason I wasn't you yes wasn't my vast not one thing you can't blame me for yeah but certainly I think we Dundee that messy or not for whatever reason but now that become fuel cycle I think no is the thing that Dundee can you'll be benefit yeah from north and that there is a vision about how this whole city should be electrified and I like that that it's great because I mean out of all the places I you know where I'm always raving about what they're doing in Norway and what they're doing in the Netherlands because I see I see you in the Netherlands is doing as being way ahead of us in terms of electric vehicles and infrastructure and City Planning and the way you plan you have cities for people not cars and all those it seems to us as a visitors that you're you're way ahead but the fact that you're impressed as a Dutch person you're impressed with with dundies there's a lot about this city I think I think so too and I think what what I'm surprised about as well is that we are already in this stage that I think our government is saying well we're also already in a sort of mature market so let's cut down to things so and I what I like here is that there may be more at the beginning but that gives you a sort of freedom to get all those new tactics and all those lessons learned and put it in your own city that's what I really like and what we don't have in a little not as much are those parking places there's parking charging hubs yeah [Music] so Fraser I've got to say this is incredibly impressive this is what I've dreamt about five years ago that there will be a an installation like this in towns you've done it you install this last year was that when they said this is a just a bit caught up for the year right so was last July we put it in here what you're looking at is as something that was flying it took two years to plan this so this was engagement with all the communities the taxi industry as we see hearing up to us Lisa Marie however it only actually took us 13 weeks to build wow it really does went were my like a derelict site to it so this this was originally in 1981-82 it was a Shell station so it's right in the heart of the city close to here of the taxi ranks higher so that was a key as well yeah because we wanted to encourage the taxis big polluters in the city yeah but we just don't have six rapid chargers and 322 kilowatts we've also got a solar array right which does about 40 kilowatts but that feeds right then here which is a 90 kilowatt battery storage you know the real benefit of this is normally what you would have with solar is about 15% we'd go back to the grid you'd lose that yeah but when it's going into you get 99% of it going into the massive storage unit and you know that these cars are getting some of the Sun I've gotten charged up right so it's obviously if you've got all the cars charging here 90 kilowatts is not going to cut it out but it's peak shaving it's taking it and the good thing about this especially with the car industry it sort of tucks in to see when it comes in and the morning between 9:00 and 10:00 after there's the contracts the system knows that there's going to be a huge peak right and then kicks in to take care of the battery storage to give you a cheaper rate at that time right and the clever thing about it is amazingly gets a wee bit colder than the winter in and Dundee I've heard they air does nippy and so what happens is the system after a week realizes that they're actually coming in that early earlier right and then the system then kicks end up instead of 9:00 or kicking at 8:00 so really thinking all the time yeah when the best advertisers came to give the cheapest rate which would normally be the highest right [Music] it's the actual amount of use that those charges are getting which is really that what sets them apart because there are motorway charges all over the UK and I've heard from the people who operate those it's it's actually still very low usage you know there are peak times obviously but there's a lot of the time they're just standing there dormant these ones up just constantly going up must be they absolutely are I can give you some more stats on that if you just take the princess Street abalone there's six rapid charging stations there and on average each charging station is delivering 15 charging sessions daily and then the taxi firms as well it seems to be they were one of the after the council had electric cars that was it one specific taxi company that started that yeah yeah the 20 30 20 company they invested I think they made their whole fleet em electric and that was a huge moment for us because I assured there wasn't just a council that was on board with us but there was actually a business and others on board and it's all about you know taking responsibility for our for Lauren our emissions we have a commitment to the government to implement a law persons owned by the year 2020 so next year so I know gets quite tight yeah that keeps you in 2020 because they're thinking but I used to be their future you know it's now but so we're really ambitious here and on the about and about promoting that whole agenda and like I said just making it easier or as easy as we possibly can to encourage people to go electric [Music] so Ryan clearly when we were at the charging point this morning yeah there were a lot of taxis coming and going they were really good to see mainly leaf miss undies so that is clearly working now yeah and I'm just intrigued at the transition so presumably previously you were running diesel taxis it was someone sent advised by the CEM so in 2016 the bra was called the electric taxi policy and I mean any new cars that were going on either had to be electric or the police which previously were we'd have to be hunted back when that person retired provided it went on an electric car that car could then be sold as a business so that's helped test let me see the numbers increase and since then as the cars have progressed going from cars were giving us to clear about 60 miles to more towards 100 300 for a there's been more an uptick but no we're about 15 percent of the attack safely in the say electric so I see so it's not it still there's still a lot of oh I don't know what to call them combustion taxis there are yeah dundies got a 60/40 split on wheelchair accessible cars versus roller coaster winds there only everyone that's available at the moment I believe is the be the env 200-year which filled the chemical test on hate regulation so at the moment not sixty percent of the fleet in order for that to then be able to transfer across you mean to you know we need to see something that's on the market males it's actually to do with the vehicle choices welcome back at the moment rather than pursuing most of the taxi drivers that have gone into electric cars are already driving taxis but just combustion taxes yes so and if they adopted a Bane adapted it takes somebody to move an order to see the benefits somebody that's never driven electric car you ask them about it though they'll go on about the don't pay mark to welcome let them set a charge of drinking coffee but in the week when you start looking at the figures what would typically be 180 to 200 pound and diesel a week will equate to more like a thirty forty pound elctricity bill yeah once guys see the benefit in that because I don't think that the onions work out much less just given the the comfort and quietness the favor on the carbs therefore diesel yeah you find that didn't want to go back to it right most of the guys that I've got working for me I've got the other DS on the fleet and if I've got to put them on it for the other morning about it so they don't actually don't want to drive the diesel they all want to drive the Alachua in terms of their longevity then are they holding up because they mean they're doing mileage that most private owners couldn't well I mean you're they're on they're on at the moment I've got a mixture of 13 40 kilowatt Leafs I just started with a load of 24 kilowatts and I'd say that generally they've held up the double shift in Texas to warn them right the heat in the batteries you didn't it was a crooked degradation but it's kind of getting that great time to get rid of them I think niffle them I've taken to 130 if those are males and it's not that they're flopping up to the job anymore it's just that there's been newer better cars on the market and that's pretty much been a tonne of it since about 2015-2016 it took me eight years to do 60,000 miles unlikely so a lot longer yeah so you're really you're pounding them much more and so when you say double shifts so they're doing all day and they're not right into split just at 6:00 a.m. 6:00 p.m. and they smell so they'll usually get a dump in between shifts but you know there are times where near that can be worth up to 20 to 24 hours a day but in terms of then mechanical sound it's like drive trains steering brakes that's all been yeah I mean just reference um what you'll see now they're on a boat the article that came out about the the brakes the you're getting even as I talk to you again about 1,000 miles that will set up Nick funds right and what would you get out of a set of brake pads on a diesel I don't know what doesn't Wow okay so it's that much better [Music] for another bit of information as the solar generation to date we've generated 17,000 kilowatts of power which is effectively 60,000 miles travel light which is a great result in the solar generation but that I mean the brilliant thing is that it's so obvious that if you are having a cover for cars where you plug them in and you've got solar panels on the top and you've got a battery I mean that it just everyone can understand it I get it so the Sun hits yeah it goes it gets stored in there then you plug your car in use some of that I mean even if it doesn't do I'm sure it doesn't do a hundred percent of what know what this is using a lot of electricity but it's taking a big chunk out of it it's certainly taken at the peak times so and where the battery storage if it doesn't get enough some days it's not sunny yeah yeah that's only a city in Scotland LTP that one in but however some days it doesn't what you've got is we with the battery storage system between one and two o'clock at night right so it's taking it from the Greek and the cheap rate when there's not enough solar yeah so there's different elements to it although as you see trying to get as much renewables to charge up these vehicles you know I think electric cars now electric driving is now about reaching out as well I think people the public industry shoot see electric driving and if I have you know if I look at at this situation with my Dutch eyes I like the situation where you've got more charging on the streets because charging on the street means that you see the electric cars charging seeing people getting out of it so it's more an inclusive yeah except for you know having a certain certain option if you don't come there you will never see an electric car in your life yeah that's not good I think for the adaptation of electric cars and then where if you come here as a private car owner what what do you pay to use the child at this moment in time is completely free Wow the Kawasaki for at the moment obviously what we've not we've tried to promote it as much as we can before we start putting in tariffs right it's really gone so quickly we will start charging yeah but that's actually will only start charging and roughly looking about 15 pence a kilowatt all right so it's not so much stronger than quite a lot of commercial we don't want to do is we don't want to stop this note yeah although we're looking at Dundee and we've got so much going on as you well know what they we're only sitting up maybe two percent right I'm so far away still yeah yeah we really need to so what the Scottish governor's a big driver for us and they have indicated that they want the public some business taxes and and companies like the delivery service here they'll have to charge because yeah well the public I don't want the people businesses yes but as far as the public you can send the Scottish government have asked us to kind of keep that free for the next two years right and they're prepared to give us funding to cover the comedy and it took us probably about two three years into this to understand that this is not just about charges that's not just about cars it's about mobility yeah it's about movement within your city I have what are we going to do to stop at going gridlock we're going to stop a boat for the pollution so it's never about where do we want the charges to be because that's where we want the cars to be right so it's so all that arts to do you understand it hmm there's a lot more going on and how do you do it everybody else goes how do you do it I know that's a big question I always get the charges don't talk to you know yeah yeah the cars doing some do but not many they're male objects there are people and I always husband and yours and it's about engaging with people and bringing people along with you and anybody can do that but then what's actually happening with this ship then it's been effectively cleaned here and all the dangerous stuff taken off but then it's towed to Turkey I think it's just amazing you think of a scale of the logistics involved yeah so it's towed to take you which is where it'll be dismantled and recycle was by its massive antenna and I was informed that this was still producing oil as recently as two weeks ago Wow and wherever was OHC and has been brought here so it's doing a cleaner it's no completely empty all right my understand there's or become clipper cleaned out here before that's towards the turkey right yeah that doesn't you know I can't seal by itself so away right so it has to be totally yeah I think that's like four four two and vessels or pickets it's okay they do the rest I mean the thing that I just want to remind our viewers is because this might it's one of my bugbears is when we see the measurement of the tailpipe emissions you know yeah that is so much the very very last end the process it doesn't really tell you the whole picture and when you see the scale of what yeah it's gone in yeah to get that petrol to that I mean I don't know how many bottles of oil that thing told it a lot yes so you're right yeah it's try to see both ends of the skillet yeah yeah tip everything a man on the seat you wouldn't really anticipate now that's the stove it we're now in a situation where we think we need even need to expand this because it's sort was working so well but what we've we've tried to future-proof it here so what we actually have is a thousand kilowatt a motor poet here right well actually at the moment only using about 350 oh I see because that was one of the things we've got asked is the capacity for the network locally but yet more you've actually got more got more capacity in here to expand it but what we what we want to do is take this slowly you cannot yeah as you probably will you cannot do any of this very quickly because you make mistakes yeah as technology 6 etc but what we do think is key for the hubs and we've got obviously another two of these in the city as they keep mentioning the tax industry yeah um they're key to using it because regardless of how much range the cars get the taxi industry you'll always be needing a rapid China but we've also got to take in account of 51% of the population a done deed you not have any on on-site parking right so they're never gonna have a solution I say plug home yeah so this is also a solution for them we are now at this moment in the Netherlands and we are mocking our government because you know they're lacking vision noticing one thing and it wanders and then they taking half measures but what's happening here they're really having a fishing and doing you know putting the money where their mouth is so I really like that yeah and there is a vision about how this whole city should be electrified and I like that D you are not a native but then you you're very involved in electric because you're stat of how many electric vehicles are in that is staggering from less than 100 on the road to 15,000 in New Zealand and that's without any incentivized anything no tax breaks nothing that was just the power of community and that's why I fell in love with Dundee this is a plucky little city that punches well above its weight and and just seeing what they're achieving when there's so many other maybe more resource centres not touching Dundee in this conversation it just it's it's a real feel-good story and it's a great place with a lot of personality there's quite an uncanny connection between Dundee and New Zealand because of video games I mean that is so such a bizarre I know those two things I'd never put them together video games electric cars and from now on I know those two things are basically linked I did ask him if there are only electric cars in Grand Theft Auto in there aren't it's some ways it's quite a good thing because if you could drive in this and leaf around the Badlands of LA running over various people I don't think that's something we should encourage they wouldn't hear you coming they would well that's all we've got time for I hope you enjoyed this episode we've had an amazing time up here in Dundee it's absolutely extraordinary what the Dundee City Council are doing I want to thanks Wako who helped us come up here to see this and to help to arrange the fabulous live event that we had at the VNA want to thank the VNA in Dundee if you ever get the chance to go it's an extraordinary building it's open to the public you can go in we had a wonderful time the amazing car charging stuff they've got going on here really exciting the taxi companies have been amazing so I won't go on too much but also want to thank our wonderful patreon supporters without you this show would not be possible it's as simple as that so thank you very much do have a look at the patreon page if you've got a moment have a look at the new fully charged dot show webpage which is chock full of gorgeous juicy organic information do subscribe to fully charge do press the little bell ding ding if you want to and as always if you have been thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Fully Charged Show

Views: 148,829

Rating: 4.9355168 out of 5

Keywords: robert llew, council car fleet, future of electricity generation, green energy comment, climate change action 2019, renewable energy electric vehicles, renewable energy youtube, stop burning fossil fuels, ev city, ev taxi, north sea oil tanker, solar electric car charging, fpso, oil tanker decommissioning, taxi charging hubs, zero emissions taxi, swarco evolt, v&a museum dundee, fully charged show, fully charged live, robert llewellyn, dundee, electric taxi, fully charged

Id: uDpblnu9xUE

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 13 2019