The UK’s largest charging hub for electric vehicles, the pb pulse Gigahub™ which has been in operation since 7th September 2023, is powered by an 80 KW solar installation enough to supply up to 180 electric vehicles simultaneously with energy. The huge solar carport was built by EV Network at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham and has become another crucial leap towards developing a reliable electric charging infrastructure in Birmingham and beyond. The 80 kWp photovoltaic installation was accomplished by sustainable energy solutions expert Ineco Energy using bi-facial PV modules from LONGi Solar, the world-largest manufacturer of PV modules and solar wafers. Furthermore, SolarEdge provided the smart energy solutions and Bluetop Solar Parking the solar carport installations for the charging hub.

Solar energy supports the transition to electric vehicles

The transition to electric vehicles has to date been slow. A main reason is the lack of EV charging infrastructure which needs to scale up fast in order to meet the future demand. At the same time, the industry is looking for solutions that support the idea of providing green energy with green energy to drive European decarbonization efforts. With solar energy being the fastest growing and most economic renewable energy source, it will play a key role in the entire EV transition going forward.

“With transport accounting for over 24% of total UK emissions, EV Infrastructure is an essential part of the UK’s transition towards Net Zero. The NEC Gigahub is a flagship site that will showcase some of its 7m annual visitors and 60m traffic count what the forecourt of the future looks like, today. Powered by renewables including from the on-site solar canopy in the day and light up by LEDs at night, the charging hub provides clean and convenient EV charging infrastructure. LONGi Solar has been a reliable partner for us providing highly reliable and efficient modules. For the installation, we decided to use bi-facial solar panels for maximum output given the application,” said Angus Rose, Director of Ineco Energy who have installed solar system delivering over 13.5 GWH of cleaner cheaper electricity and or the equivalent of powering nearly 4000 UK homes.

“We are proud to support a project like this new Gigahub at the heart of the UK motorway grid at the NEC in Birmingham. At LONGi we follow the concept of “solar for solar”, meaning to produce clean energy with clean energy. Charging electric vehicles with solar energy thus corresponds to our DNA at LONGi”, said Sean McSorley, Sales Manager UK at LONGi.

“Our choice or suppliers and contractors in the creation of this site were key, as a flagship site, we required the best-in-class service on very tight project timelines. Working with Ineco has been exemplary, their understanding of not just the operational project, but the significance of the site has been important. With so many moving parts, flexibility, expertise and efficiency is in high demand. Working with Angus and the team at Ineco has been perfect, the project delivered brilliantly enabling us to deliver this incredible site,” said Reza Shaybani, CEO and Co-Founder of The EV Network.

From 2012 to 2022, LONGi produced 290 GW of photovoltaic products, resulting in a cumulative clean energy output of over 1.15 million GWh. Based on the average emission factor of the global power grid, estimated by the IEA (International Energy Agency), this is equivalent to avoiding 536 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. That accounts for 1.46% of the total global energy-related carbon emissions in 2022.

LONGi proposed the concept of “Solar for solar” as far back as the 24th United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2018. Behind this concept lies the ambition of producing clean energy from clean energy. In 2020, LONGi joined the RE100, EP100, EV100 initiatives in succession and participated in the SBTi, becoming the first Chinese company to join all four global initiatives. This year, LONGi’s near-term target has been approved by the SBTi, aligning with the 1.5℃ target in the Paris Agreement.

Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen has launched a global ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ campaign to help our most polluted urban centres become carbon neutral, by donating the company’s Digital Twin platform SmartWorldPro2 to key cities, one at a time.

Cities produce more than 70%* of the earth’s greenhouse gases, but Jansen says use of cutting-edge data and AI will change this dramatically:

“Since our inception we have been using these tools to deliver custom climate resilience applications to greenfield cities, real estate developments, and infrastructure projects.

“We know the issues and now have the right data aggregation, analysis, and visualization capabilities to help solve them for cities, and those who design, build, and manage them.

“The world’s top 100 most-polluting cities produce 18%** of global urban emissions and we will meet this challenge head-on, by going right to the biggest contributors first. As one megacity reaps the benefits, so others and governments will follow their example. What works for one will work for all. That is the beauty of SmartWorldPro2.

“Launching this ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ initiative marks a milestone for us and shareable, networked, city-scale Digital Twin deployments. Digital Twins were first developed to aggregate, analyze, and visualize vastly complex information in manufacturing plants and building construction sites, but have evolved into a powerful aid to urban climate resilience and lowering carbon emissions.

“We’ve spoken publicly since 2013 about Digital Twin technology’s potential to accelerate energy transition and it’s now a reality. Early Cityzenith-led carbon emission reduction projects included efforts in San Francisco, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Chicago. These culminated in a World Smart City Award recognition, plus a World Cities Summit Young Leader appointment and letter of support from the C40 Cities Climate Action Group to jointly explore collaboration.

“Our focus has expanded to include large-scale commercial projects in cities as in the Orlando Sports + Entertainment District and greenfield ‘smart cities’ like Amaravati in India.

“In Amaravati, by consolidating myriads of climate related data points, the goal was to show how architects could use advanced AI integrations in SmartWorldPro to simulate and design housing schemes to lower carbon emissions and cut average street temperatures dramatically in high summer.

“Today we are helping partners all over the world leverage Digital Twin power across their district, infrastructure, campus and real estate projects to transition from fossil fuel dependency to carbon neutrality.

“But no one seems to be helping cities to implement this technology, and that’s why we decided to step in and make our pledge.

“We’ve asked people all over the world to join our mission. Where the world’s governments have backed off or just don’t know what to do, We the People need to lead the way. To learn more and find out how you can get involved, visit our pledge campaign page here

The coronavirus does not stop Helsinki’s climate work. The schedule for the international Helsinki Energy Challenge has been altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the competition process remains intact despite the changes in the schedule.

Helsinki wants to offer a platform for new, sustainable and innovative solutions, and, on 27 February, the City opened the international Helsinki Energy Challenge. The competition seeks to find solutions, by means of which the city can be heated in a sustainable way without coal and with as little biomass as possible during the upcoming decades. The grand prize of the competition is one million euros. The City of Helsinki lives up to its global responsibility in the fight against climate change and is committed to sharing the results of the competition openly, in order to allow other cities to benefit from them in their own climate work. The role of the cities in the fight against the climate crisis is decisive.

Despite the world situation caused by the coronavirus, the City of Helsinki keeps investing heavily in its climate work. The climate crisis has not been cancelled and the City is still working its way towards a carbon neutral Helsinki. In order to get the best possible result out of the Helsinki Energy Challenge even in this changed situation, it has been decided that the registration phase is prolonged. The prolonged registration phase ends on 30 September 2020. The finalist teams invited to the second phase of the competition are announced in the beginning of November and the winner of the competition will be revealed in March 2021.

“Our competition got off to a great start at the end of February, and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive both in Finland and abroad. It is clear that we have started something unique. However, the changed world situation caused by the coronavirus comes at a difficult stage in respect to our competition. Innovators and potential competitors now need time to adapt to the new situation and prolonging the registration phase of the competition is necessary at this point. The competition process will remain otherwise unaltered. Despite the coronavirus, we need to stick to the climate goals. We still have to get rid of coal and we want to replace it with long-term sustainable solutions. We are fulfilling our responsibility in the fight against the global climate crisis and we will not let it wait until the coronavirus crisis has blown over. Both the Helsinki Energy Challenge and our other climate efforts continue at full strength”, notes Helsinki Mayor Jan Vapaavuori.

During the prolonged registration phase of the Helsinki Energy Challenge, there will be additional webinars and other virtual events, during which the competitors can learn more about the competition, but also look for members to their competition team. Interested parties are encouraged to enter the competition as diversified and cross-disciplinary teams.

The new competition schedule and further information about the Helsinki Energy Challenge: www.energychallenge.hel.fi