ELMOs - Electromobility Solutions for Cities and Regions

Ever growing city-regions and settlement patterns which ask for new infrastructures and new spatial land use planning reaching up to megacities and polycentric city networks will prevail globally. Today, 60 to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions and a great deal of air pollution (i.e. nitrogen oxides (NOXs) and particulate matters (PMs)) stem from urban areas and city regions, traffic contributing considerably.

Urban sprawl to outer districts and density in the inner-cities are the main challenges of urban transport, as they generate rising commuting needs for the citizens, in the same time leading to congestion and environmental problems in inner cities as well as rising costs for public transport structure. Passenger cars are responsible for more than 70% of emissions attributed to urban transport. Forasmuch, the improvement and the sustainability of urban transport systems is a necessity for the quality of life, wellbeing and safety of citizens.

Huge innovation potential resides in new business models, which will be elaborated on in the project within the goal of developing «Concepts for Future Business Models». Innovative infrastructure solutions of charging and plug-in spots will lead to additional business opportunities for the regional transport-related industries, including smart e-metering, passenger information systems, cross border roaming and billing models.

The overall goal of ELMOs is to promote more sustainable transport through the development of electromobility solutions for cities and regions (ELMOs). The projects aims at delivering concepts for a better exchange of electromobility knowledge at regional and EU level, concepts for new business models and for cross-border field tests which should lead to an improved standardisation in electromobility technology and to new insights in applied science. The project therefore, contributes to enhance the regional capacities for a fostering of the sustainable transport-related economy.

Electric vehicles are regarded as one of the cleanest solutions for urban mobility. Due to daily congested roads in and around agglomerations with highly polluting stop-and-go traffic, electromobility with zero-emissions in cities will bring large and quick gains in greenhouse gas reduction and alleviation of air and noise pollution. Moreover, innovative green vehicle concepts will lead to new and sustainable mobility forms in urban mobility. Some already see a new electric mobility age to come up.

However, a fast uptake of electromobility depends on appropriate regional infrastructures, a shift in user patterns, and intelligent vehicle-use concepts embedded in the urban transport environment. The market potential is considered to be enormous.

The working scheme is designed to achieve these objectives: High-level expert round tables and international networks will gather additional expertise. Two EU-mentoring regions are involved from the start. From the sectors ICT, automotive and renewable energy, four mature and two less RDCs in geographically linked regions participate. Their intended set-up of joint concepts for electromobility cross-border testing has never been done so far. As concrete outcomes, concepts for smart specialisation, a joint agenda for future RTDI and training tools will be developed and exciting dissemination actions undertaken.

Given the complexity of the electromobile technology deployment EU-wide triple helix approach is a prerequisite and the support by a «Regions of Knowledge» project is thus, regarded as a great chance.

The market uptake of electromobility strongly depends on four dimensions: (i) Reliable technologies and appropriate (public) charging infrastructure, (ii) competitive total cost of ownership (TCO) respectively cost of usage, (iii) supportive policy framework (incentives to buy and/or use electric vehicles) and (iv) consumer acceptance expressed in new usage patterns. This leads to an integrated research, technological development and innovation (RTDI) circle which summarises the basic concept of ELMOs.

The circle consists of five elements:

1. Problem areas to be addressed by
2. technologies, concepts and solutions to be developed through the optimisation of research infrastructures and the interplay of the three electromobility-constituent sectors automotive, renewable energy and ICT which help
3. cities and regions to establish holistic mobility concepts including provision of infrastructure and incentives which in turn fertilises
4. market uptake based on cross-border field tests, early adopters and citizens readiness which ideally lead to
5. socio-economic benefits in terms of economic growth, regions competitiveness and quality of life.

ELMOs expected impact is set to accelerate the introduction of electromobility solutions in cities and regions on the regional, national and EU level.

Barriers on regional level will be removed by knowledge transfer and knowledge customisation towards regional decision makers, city managers, spatial planners, emergency teams and garages and by the provision of training tools and a European «Electromobility Inventory». The inventory will be accessible via the project’s web portal. These measures aim at mainstreaming the electro-mobility knowledge gained and are suitable to invite other clusters, regions, socio-economic stake-holders, SME and researchers as well as investors to benefit from the knowledge gathered in the project. In addition, these knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange activities will be deployed to define the requirements for a «European Electromobility Academy», to bundle all technology transfer, knowledge transfer and training activities into a «pole of electromobility» for urban environments on the EU level.

The project’s orientation towards new business models, investor relations and international networking of RDCs will generate tentatively effects on the economic sphere. New business models such as car-sharing, car-on-demand as well as smart metering and passenger information for a modal shift can trigger new value-creation-chains in the ICT, the automotive and renewable energy sector.

Standardisation - envisaged by the results of the cross-border tests in the projects - will create added value via new patents and new applications, i.e. new charging facilities, standardised plug-in-stations, battery leasing models, battery change spots for light urban freighters. Foreign Direct Investment is to be expected for all value chains involved, if the EU is to become a flourishing market for electromobility. In case, production capacity for electromobility is maintained in the EU jobs and job opportunities will be saved and increased. The involvement of high quality research in the theme is of key value because shrinking battery sizes, new modes of electrochemical storage and steering electronics as challenges for RTD are to be solved in the years to come.

Sustainable and renewable energies are regarded as future markets. Electromobility will give a boost to these markets being direct consumers of renewables and preparing the EU to post-petrol times. Electromobility offers flexibility to all primary energy sources, because the electric power used can be produced on various paths: solar, wind, water power and hydrogen. In addition, electromobility will stimulate the renewable energy market by storage of energy in batteries on long distances: Wind power generated in the North Sea or water power from the Austrian Alps can charge batteries in stations close by. The units will then be transported to urban environments and metropolitan regions where the electromobility is scaled up in use. Peaks in energy production can be alleviated; flaws can be equalized by battery storage, contribution to the quick spread and comfort use of renewables.

One of project’s objectives is to fuel new research ideas and to generate new RTD projects by conceptualising cross-border tests, by Open Innovation Forums, by spotting the funding opportunities as a strategy in the Joint Action & Business Plan. The clustering and networking in the project and the outreach to other clusters will ease the formation of new consortia for Horizon 2020 projects; regional stakeholders of ERDF funding will be informed on the ELMOS results and be encouraged to release regional projects. If development prospects for electromobility can be clearly demonstrated by the project’s activities, regional investment in RTD capacities will increase and promote synergies with other funding on regional, national and EU level.

Approximately 150 billion Euro of public money is expected to be spent for developing renewable energy friendly mobility technologies by governments in the years to come. Unlocking these funding potentials will be one of ELMOs objectives, to be achieved through the definition of a Joint Action & Business Plan where funding opportunities will be scanned, listed and further elaborated as well as the involvement of innovators & investors which expands the list of funding sources by venture capital, business angels and debts. Here, possible private financiers will be made familiar with the electromobility prospects, valorisation of project results from the business models will be pursued, and new research will be unleashed through direct communication between investors and the research and business community.

Following a cross-disciplinary and integrated approach, ELMOS brings together four fully fledge mature RDCs with complementary fields of expertise comprising the three electromobility-constituent sectors ICT, automotive and renewable energies. Furthermore, ELMOs integrates two clusters with less-developed research profiles from Hungary and Slovenia from the very beginning of the proposed project and thus, supports them in catching-up and building on their own capacities to further develop their RDCs.

Mentoring for capacity building and mutual learning are central elements of ELMOs, i.e., the two mentee regions West Transdanubia and Slovenia are involved from the very beginning throughout all work packages, which taken by itself, fertilises mutual learning.

Further information please visit homepage: http://www.future-mobility.eu