New York cooperates with Ubitricity for charging network

Berlin-based Ubitricity has won the Local Climate Action Tech Competition in New York. Now the administration behind mayor Bill de Blasio is checking potential cooperations with the company in all five boroughs of NYC.

Ubitricity is mostly known for their development of a mobile electricity meter, which allows for a simple upgrade of existing street lights to additionally function as electric vehicle chargers. In June a test installation was set up in New York. Now the talk is about a multi-year pilot-project in all five of New York’s boroughs.

The Local Climate Action Tech Competition was first announced in 2017, after which the Berliners managed to prevail against 30 other competitors. The contest was started in cooperation between the New Yorker Chief Technology Office, the NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, NYC’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and NYC’s Department of Transportation.

“Ubitricity’s innovative solution could be instrumental in helping the City’s achieve its climate action goal while simplifying the needs of electric vehicle users and future adopters,” said Jeremy Goldberg, a representative from the Mayor’s Office.

Recently, Ubitricity has been able to score internationally. They have agreements in place with London and more locally in Dortmund.
Only in their home town of Berlin, the startup does not seem to be gaining much traction. This may change soon, however: according to information obtained by our Berlin head office electrive.net, there are efforts to upgrade a large amount of street lamps with the technology. The move is part of a clean air initiative by the state, which has set funds aside for low-cost infrastructure and has several potential applications for mobile metering charge points for electric vehicles.

cityofnewyork.us, press release (PDF, in German)