The event happened on the 3 October 2018. The Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, the main organiser, spared no effort to make it a great success. The full spectrum of Catalan energy and mobility stakeholders from Catalan Efficient Energy Cluster were on board to support the event.
The first objective of this event was to demonstrate the developments in Barcelona and Catalonia on electric mobility and the required (smart) charging infrastructure. As a second objective, it focused on the definition of near future developments regarding the upscaling of EV numbers, types, the infrastructure and the related challenges and how to deal with them. The mid-long term objective demonstrates the need for integration with local renewable energy for a large-scale rollout of electric mobility, needed for the city transition.
During the first part of the event, we could listen to a series of speeches addressing the energy and mobility scenario in Spain, Catalonia and Barcelona by 2030 with questions like: Will the goals be reached, which flaws does the system show, where lies the highest potential for change?
This session was followed by a group interview with representatives from the EV partner regions Flevoland, Stockholm, Kaunas and Lazio on the challenges they are facing and how EV Energy project could or will help to overcome them. The interview also offered a nice comparative perspective in between the different regions and highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of each of them.
After a short coffee break, two parallel sessions took place: A marketplace event organised by the Catalan Efficient Energy Cluster, where local companies from the energy and mobility sector presented themselves or pitched their products; and a peer-to-peer workshop for invited experts. The workshop was composed of five tables each moderated by an expert and attended by 5-8 international participants. Each table treated a different subject related to the energy and mobility transition: Renewables and electric vehicles integration; Technological challenges; Business models; Social perspective; Policy and regulation.
Later in the afternoon, the experts from the morning peer-to-peer workshop formed an expert panel, where they presented the results from the workshop.
In an additional session, companies from the sector had a change to meet and discuss face-to-face in B2B meetings organised by the Catalan Efficient Energy Cluster, a great opportunity to establish new business relationships.
To close the event we had the chance to participate in a very interesting study visit organised by LIVE Platform including the presentation of local charging infrastructure with technical explications and a demonstration of two electric scooter sharing services (eCooltra and Muving), where we even had the possibility to give the scooters a try.
For more information you are welcome to visit:
https://www.interregeurope.eu/evenergy/
