EVI Pilot City Forum 2021

Dundee City Council recently hosted the 2021 Electric Vehicle Initiative (EVI) Pilot City Forum over the 8th & 9th of November, in collaboration with the International Energy Agency. This year's theme focused on "The road to scaling up: from pilot-scale to commercial adoption". After the very popular first and second editions of the EVI-PCP, in Helsinki (Finland, 2018) and Guangzhou (China, 2019) respectively, this third edition of the Forum took place on the margins of the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). 

The Forum is a key annual feature of the EVI Global EV Pilot City Program (EVI-PCP), which aims to build a network of at least 100 cities by 2022, which will work together on the promotion of electric mobility. Central pillars of the programme are to facilitate information exchange among cities and to encourage the replication of best practises. The work of the EVI-PCP is coordinated by the IEA and the Shanghai International Automobile City (SIAC). Like in previous years, this edition of the Forum brought together the experiences and lessons from electric mobility development at the city-level in the UK and globally. 

Day 1:

On the 8th November, delegates were given a tour around Dundee City's latest EV developments in infrastructure and vehicle expansion including our pop-up chargers, multi-model charging hub, Princes Street charging hub and electric bin lorries. This gave delegates from all over the world a chance to see the progress in Dundee first hand and discuss plans for the future. 

The tour was then followed up by a networking session in the evening, allowing delegates and representatives from Dundee City Council to discuss the goals and objectives of the conference on the 9th. This was highly beneficial, laying the ground for discussions the following day and making one-to-one brainstorming possible ahead of the main event. 

Day 2:

On the 9th, speakers were invited to the Apex City Quay Hotel to attend a series of speaker sessions that included presentations from key organisations such as Dundee City Council, Transport Scotland, OZEV, WBCSD, International Energy Agency, Clean Energy Ministerial, SWARCO and many others.

Topics included exploring the Electric Vehicle Initiative in depth, the impact of low carbon technologies on Scotland’s networks, Dundee City’s EV journey so far, Ghana’s energy future, zero emissions trucks and buses, local transitions and WBCSD’s pathway to decarbonised transport.

These and many other topics were further broadened and debated during informative Q&A sessions. This gave both in-person and virtual attendees the opportunity to quiz speakers on specific points of interest.

In total, 50 delegates attended in-person including representatives from Ghana, The Gambia, France and Estonia. Additionally, over 70 delegates tuned in around the world including from China, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, the USA, Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Sweden. 

So far, we have received great feedback for our work and felt the connections made during this event were very valuable. The central take-away of the event was the need for further collaboration; namely creating links internationally, sharing lessons learned and discussing project developments from the local, national and global level.

To watch the conference back, visit our conference website here: https://evipilotcityforum.co.uk/ 

Michelin Demonstrator & Showcase Event - 11th & 12th November 

Dundee City Council also attended the Michelin Demonstrator & Showcase Event over the 11^th & 12^th November, exhibiting the collective efforts of Sustainable Dundee, Drive Dundee Electric, Invest Dundee and Urban Foresight.

The two-day event began with welcome speeches from Kate Forbes, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and John Alexander, leader of Dundee City Council, both offering hopeful reflections on the role Scotland as a whole and Dundee, as a pioneering small city, is taking in combating the climate crisis.

This was a highly beneficial event, allowing the council to network with key stakeholders and introducing representatives to the latest clean energy alternatives. The innovation on show and entrepreneurial drive supported by MSIP meant well established businesses and inventive start-ups could network and collaborate.

On stand we had e-bikes, a fully electric council fleet vehicle, video footage from projects around the city, informative banners and copies of the Dundee Climate Plan.