Successful kick-off meeting for the Green eMotion work packages in Brussels

Environmentally friendly mobility will be a major challenge in the future – on par with the growing trend towards urbanization, the steady rise in the world’s population, the increasing scarcity of natural resources, and global climate change. In the search for a sustainable solution to these challenges, electrical energy is the key to success, particularly when it comes to mobility.

Environmentally friendly mobility will be a major challenge in the future – on par with the growing trend towards urbanization, the steady rise in the world’s population, the increasing scarcity of natural resources, and global climate change. In the search for a sustainable solution to these challenges, electrical energy is the key to success, particularly when it comes to mobility. However, penetration rates of electric vehicles are still low, because of the high battery cost and the still low level of existing charging infrastructure. For this reason, the Green eMotion project was set up to develop a European framework for electromobility, dealing with interoperational issues of the charging infrastructure. It was successfully kicked off in Brussels on March 15 and 16, 2011 with 95 participants from 41 beneficiaries on day one, and 130 participants also from the External Stakeholder Board attending the sessions on the second day.

Day 1, March 15th 2011
After welcoming words and an introduction to Green eMotion, project coordinator Heike Barlag from Siemens gave a project overview. After that, work started in parallel workshops, detailing each work package’s work plan for the first six months and clarifying open topics and data requirements. By the end of the day, the final work plan and the cooperation between the work packages (WP) were agreed upon.
Work on the first day mainly focused on specifying content, expected outcomes and next steps in all work packages to have a clear understanding about each partner's contribution. Further objective was to solve any open topics and to enable immediate start of activities.

Day 2, March 16th 2011
The morning session was open to non-consortium partners and all stakeholders that were interested to learn more about the Green eMotion project. In his introductory speech Hugues van Honacker from the EC set the Green eMotion project in the context of the EU Green Car Initiative. A major goal in the EC is the mass deployment of electromobility. Therefore, it is very much in the interest of the EC to set the Green eMotion project on a very broad base in the respective industry. To achieve this, the External Stakeholder Board is a very important part of the project and will help key experts in electromobility not directly involved in the project connect to its results and findings.

Heike Barlag then provided an overview of the project’s objectives, their main tasks and expected results. This was followed by the first information session for external stakeholders. Some 30 companies and institutions took part in this meeting. Its main topics were the contribution of the external stakeholders to the project’s success and how the project can reach an audience as wide as possible to spread its results. Then cooperation with other initiatives such as the US Plug-in Vehicle RD&D Activities or the HyRaMP initiative were discussed. In the afternoon, legal and financial as well as project management issues were dealt with and first decisions were taken in the general assembly.

 

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