Session 1.2: Scaling Up E-Mobility as a Platform for Sustainable Urban Transportation

May 22nd, 2019

The mobility of city residents and goods in Asia today is largely dependent on petroleum fuels that power road vehicles and other public transportation systems. Presenters in this session explored the potential for sustainable urban mobility, and discussed a range of technological innovations, policy and regulatory support, attractive business models and financial structuring that can create an enabling environment for e-mobility.

Moderator: Yong Chen, Programme Officer – Sustainable Urban Energy, IRENA

Scene Setter Talk: Ki Joon, Principal Transport Specialist, ADB

Presenters:

Potential role of Electric Utilities in Supporting Transport Electrification in Sri Lanka
Tisura Gamage, Research Assistant, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka

This presentation analysed the potential role of electric utilities in supporting Transport Electrification (TE) in Sri Lanka. It also compared the outcomes, learning and arguments from the U.S. State Public Utilities Commission Proceedings to Sri Lanka from a qualitative perspective looking into degrees of utility ownership, equity, market competition, innovation, managed charging and social inclusion.

The Philippines – Where E-Mobility Must be Affordable, Income Maximized, and the Availability of Charging Infrastructure Guaranteed
Robin Hughes, Founder, Director, Clean Vehicle Solutions (Asia) Limited

The Philippines government has decided to replace more than 4,000,000 old polluting Public Transport vehicles (PUV). This presentation focused on the challenge of providing a financial mechanism that allows for marginalised borrowers to afford their vehicles, structure the PUV fleet management policy that enables all who wish to participate, and provides a refuelling infrastructure that guarantees an operational range without STOPPING to charge.

Enabling electric vehicles (EV) Charging Infrastructure – Case Study of India
Apurva Chaturvedi, Senior Clean Energy Specialist, USAID

The global electric vehicle sales are on the rise have surpassed 1 million units in 2017. As per the IEA estimates (Global EV Outlook, 2018), there will be about 125 million EVs on the road by 2030. This presentation provided the key insights on business model and approach developed for EESL for rollout EV charging infrastructure in India. It covered pricing strategy, bulk procurement approach to reduce cost, institutional framework, feasibility assessment for selection of locations & business model for scale-up. It also provided the learnings drawn from implementation of a pilot of 30 charging stations across the capital of India – Delhi.

Partnering for Clean Air City Mobility
Gordon Yu, CEO & Chairman, eTouch Innovation Co., Ltd.

This presentation provided an overview of a cloud/RFID based 40-second battery swapping system/platform for electrical two-wheeler (e-bike/e-scooter/e-motorcycle). This system is expandable to compact three or four-wheeler and smart microgrid in the near future for efficient EV and smart municipal power systems.

Blockchain’s Potential for Solar Powered EV Charging Stations
Lathika Chandra Mouli, Business Development Manager, Vertech Capital

Evergo is a blockchain-based, plug-and-play backend system that addresses the challenge of EV charging that can destablize the grid by spiking power demand. This presentation provided an overview of a pilot being trialled in Thailand to test the blockchain’s ability to gather data that indicates the energy supply-demand match. It focused on the best practices to overcome the ‘pilot trap’ for clean energy technologies and the importance of public-private collaboration to achieve speed to market in the region.