London borough prepares for fleet electrification

The Council of the North London borough Islington has received its first six Renault Zoe. The arrival of the new vehicles also coincides with the upgrade of its fleet charging infrastructure. The rest of the 500 vehicle fleet is to follow in further electrification efforts.

To be exact, Islington Council aims to switch more vehicles within its 500-strong fleet gradually. The turn to electric includes passenger cars like the Zoe but also small vans up to street sweeping vehicles and 26-tonne, refuse and recycling collection vehicles. While the exact schedule for fleet electrification remains unclear, Islington is aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2030.

“Islington Council is committed to making our fleet greener, as part of our continuing efforts to clean the air that local people breathe and to help achieve our goal of creating a net-zero carbon Islington by 2030,” said Cllr Rowena Champion, Islington Council’s Executive Member for Environment and Transport. “The use of the Renault Zoe by our Voids Team will help to achieve this goal, ensuring that the team are able to travel around the borough in an environmentally-friendly way.”

The new Zoe vehicles were procured via The Procurement Partnership Limited (TPPL) framework agreement. The Voids Team sits within the borough’s Housing Property Services division.

The small Renault cars join other electric vehicles such as the Nissan eNV200 vans. The council had started a trial in January this year in connection with newly installed smart charging infrastructure. The charging stations were designed by Honda, together with its Swiss partner EVTec. It is decidedly more compact than other V2G-capable charging stations and offers both ChaDeMo and CCS charging. The latter is a novelty as Honda claimed at the launch that this would enable the first bi-directional charging capability via CCS, once the Honda e arrives.

There have been no details on further upgrades to the charging infrastructure in Islington. Recent information by the Council speaks of 190 charging points at present and a goal of having 400 installed by the end of March 2022.

With reporting by Nora Manthey, London.

renewableenergymagazine.com, renault.co.uk, islington.gov.uk (charging points)