New Solar Powered Electric Vehicle Charging Point
News that investment into the first electric vehicle charging point all powered by the sun has gone into operation in perhaps the cloudiest part of the country has been announced.
With the eventual boom in electric powered cars on the UK roads there needs to be some incentive and ease of recharging these vehicles and in years to come it’s likely to be as common place as the standard petrol station is today.
So news that the business minister Ian Lucas unveiled the first electric charging point all powered by solar power must mean a small step forward for this technology. Additionally he announced £8.4m funding for a new training centre for the low carbon vehicle industry from Gateshead College who will be using it to learn new low carbon skills.
Skills in new renewable technologies are stretched at the moment as we have previously mentioned on this site and perhaps this is good news but really the investment is a drop in the ocean for what’s required to meet all the tough targets on reducing emissions and having more electrical power generated by renewable energy sources.
The new powerpark system that was unveiled is a joint venture between Regional Development Agency One North East with the solar canopies manufactured through a partnership of Romag and Tegrel and are installed and distributed by British Gas. The investment in the training college is a joint venture funding initiative between the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) Gateshead College, Semta, One North East and Nissan. The support for the programme includes £4.2m from LSC, £2.4m from One North East and £917,000 from Gateshead College. So no new money from the government here in what could be a crisis in 5 years time when they suddenly realise that skills are still low on the ground and the targets set by the EU and the Climate Change Act are still far away.
Although everyone who attended this meeting and function for the new electric charging point suggested that it’s great news for the local economy and that even Gateshead Council will replace a massive 10 electric vehicles to replace some of its diesel vans it just doesn’t go far enough. There are plans to have up to 1,300 electric charging points across the north east region but no time limits have been provided so far as to when the full roll out will be undertaken.
Certainly though although solar panels can still work when there is cloud in the sky they are less efficient so we are wondering why all this investment is being made in a part of the country where the sun shines less and most of the population and polluting vehicles are perhaps based in the southern parts of the country. May be the north east will show the rest of the country how to do things which would be great but the story did not make the national news so there is much to do with developing the skills sets for this new technology and communicating what is actually happening to help the UK mean all its environmental targets in the coming years.
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