The emobility innovation driving Rotterdam’s energy transition

Lutske Lindemann steers Yusuf Latief through Rotterdam’s EV success stories and highlights that the city’s pioneering projects still need to shift up a gear to reach their potential.

Rotterdam is fast being recognised for its immense efforts into decarbonisation across sectors, one of them being e-mobility.

So much so, that Lutske Lindemann, the city’s Strategic Advisor for Energy Transition and Mobility, and her colleagues won the E-Visionary award from AVERE (the European Association for Electromobility) for their work in the sector.

And for Lindemann, even though the city’s efforts are clearly paying off, there is still a fair share of work to be done.

How did it feel to win AVERE’s award and what makes Rotterdam so visionary in e-mobility?

It was quite an honour, of course.

I think we won the award because we have been working on electric mobility for a very long time. At the beginning of the century, we were already doing pilots to gauge how everything would work.

In the case of Rotterdam, it is what we call a ‘can-do city’ – if we hear something is possible, we test it: exploring what is needed, what works and what doesn’t.

And after extensive testing, we have got to a point where the city has more than 4,000 charge points for cars that are used frequently.

Have you read:
First Fit for 55 deal signed for zero emissions vehicles by 2035
Project BATRAW – raw material recovery from EV batteries

How would you compare the attitude in Rotterdam towards e-mobility a decade ago to now?

The concept then was still fresh. There were a lot of unknowns surrounding EV charging, but now these have become normalised. For our employees, the work itself has become much more of a given and even in the city, electric cars are much more common, rather than a spectacle.

In this regard, we’ve actually broken the chicken or egg problem, at least in denser areas and in the Western part of the country. What this has done is convince people to make the daring move into electric vehicles.

When people see how many chargers there are, they no longer have the anxiety that is typically associated with EVs. And I think this really helps.

At the same time, however, there is still a lot of pioneering to be done. We continue making progress in the industry for it to be seen more as the norm, but there are still areas in the testing phases. For example, vehicle-to-grid charging is being tested but there aren’t enough vehicles in the right areas and not enough people living in those spaces for the tests to be as conclusive as they should be.

How has the city managed to overcome challenges along the way?

Having political backing has made a world of difference. It really helps that our local and national governments embrace the Paris Agreement. At the same time, they recognise the importance of helping the citizens – the ‘Rotterdammers’ so to say – facilitate EV charging.

We did a concession for chargers in public spaces for 32 separate cities in the province of South Holland and found that even though there is a demand for chargers, without the right collaborations the ball won’t get rolling.

…we have got to a point where the city has more than 4,000 charge points for cars that are used frequently

Ten years ago we had a few charge points and nobody even noticed them. Now there are streets with six chargers and 12 points. In July this year, 31% of all sold cars in the Netherlands had a plug; it’s all scaling up quite speedily and we need to adapt.

But another challenge that is still quite prevalent is acceptance: people can’t afford an EV and more charge points mean potentially fewer areas to refuel fossil fuel vehicles.

This also lends to a social dilemma, where the gap between the rich and poor widens as more EVs, which are unaffordable for many, come online. We have to pay attention to these social aspects – people shouldn’t be split apart because of cars.

This is especially prevalent in South Rotterdam, where we want to have electric share cars that are potentially cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. If we have an attractive car share system charged with cheap solar energy, a financial solution for the social issue might be found. But for this to happen successfully there are many complexities that need to be navigated.

What were the tech advancements needed to get Rotterdam to where it is now?

Interoperability. And this wasn’t specific to Rotterdam but rather the Netherlands as a whole.

When we started work on electric mobility on scale in 2010, we thought that because the Netherlands is a relatively small country, at least geographically, it should be possible to drive from point A to point B with ease.

But there are 17 million citizens in the Netherlands. And for any big city, the number of municipalities needs to be considered. Networks have their own specifications for charging, which means that having charge for A to B wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

Also of interest:
INFLEXION: “World first” V2X pilot launched for grid resilience
Renault’s bidirectional charger to drive 30% uptick in energy efficiency
Ending the ICE age to put EVs in the fast lane

We decided to look into building an interoperable network and examined cases of telephone roaming and banking. When it comes to drawing money, the brand doesn’t matter. So long as there is an ATM, there will be an ability to withdraw. We wanted to take this concept and apply it to charging.

Getting this right was a very important step for the Netherlands. For example, in Berlin, they had 40 different charge operators with 40 different cards. So one had to have 40 memberships to be able to drive around Berlin and charge a car, which is very inconvenient.

But because of interoperability, in the Netherlands it doesn’t matter which city one lives in – one can travel throughout the whole country.

However, while these types of technologies may work locally, the larger scale is a different consideration. This type of system still has a long way to go for seamless travel within Europe and outside of the continent and will require international cooperation.

The EU has said it wants to phase out internal combustion engines (ICEs) completely by 2035. Do you think Rotterdam is on its way?

I think so. We did some predictions and think the entire city can be fossil fuel free by 2040. The government is hoping to have no fossil fuel cars sold after 2030 and these 10 years make it possible for older ICEs made up until 2029 to be completely phased out.

After 2035, how do you see electrified transport evolving?

In the Netherlands, there are separate electric and mobility transitions.

Cities are aiming to have citizens partake more in biking, walking, public transport and car sharing because our cities have to be denser. We are a small country and cannot use old land to build houses on. But such density means that the status quo for cars cannot stay – it needs to change.

And besides the environmental challenge we face, it’s simply not possible to have one-to-one car ownership as we have now.

With this kind of shift, we will see the quality of life and public space improving.

The city becomes more attractive, the people become healthier and there is a maintained level of accessibility and economic opportunity for businesses to grow.