Siemens, which ranked top of Dow Jones Sustainability Index in 2011, has further confirmed its green credentials today by incorporating an electric vehicle charging facility at its newly refurbished main site, Ruston Works, in the heart of the City of Lincoln and at the School of Engineering, a joint collaboration with the University of Lincoln.
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Siemens has adopted a zero-emission electric transport solution to move employees between its sites in Lincoln and the university. Siemens believes that by adopting electric vehicles it can save many tonnes of CO2 per annum and help set the standard that other companies in the area can follow.
“As a major employer in the city, we realised early on that we had both an obligation and opportunity to improve our carbon footprint and impact on the city,” said Nick Muntz, managing director of Siemens in Lincoln. “The city is very compact and our sites are close together making this ideal for electric vehicle transport. We took the opportunity as part of our refurbishment programme to embed sustainability in all areas, including transport. We hope this will be a model for many other initiatives,” he said.
Siemens has installed its high power, innovative charging stations at the newly opened Main Works and at the School of Engineering at the University. These provide fast and safe charging for the Siemens fleet of Nissan Leaf vehicles and the University’s electric bus, which can already been seen in and around the city.
“The Siemens charging stations can fully charge our vehicles in one hour ensuring that they are always available” said Mark Bonnor-Morris, business development manager of Siemens Mobility and Logistics, Traffic Solutions. “Siemens also provides a full supply, installation and maintenance service. As the UK’s largest provider of traffic controls we have a specialist field force that is able to support eCar charging infrastructure as part of a much larger portfolio of work. This ensures that the eCar chargers are maintained to a high and consistent service level ensuring the highest performance in terms of availability and safety”
The new School of Engineering is an integral part of this pioneering initiative. The University was very keen to embrace the technology, as its Professor of Energy Conversion, Chris Bingham, is currently conducting research into electric vehicles and driver behaviour with CENEX - the UK’s Centre of Excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technology.
As Dr Jill Stewart, head of the School of Engineering said: “The whole School of Engineering collaboration with Siemens was based around innovation and developing a state-of-the-art facility. Implementation of an electric vehicle solution was very much in line with our joint thinking. It is a very exciting initiative and we look forward to seeing a much greater uptake in other parts of the city too. We are setting the standard.”
The plan is to roll out these charging stations in other parts of the city too. Siemens is working together with the Council to explore this potential.
“We are very pleased that Siemens have taken the initiative to use electric transportation, reducing Lincoln’s carbon footprint is a key priority for the council,” said Kate Bell from the City of Lincoln Council. “The council is working hard to raise the profile of Lincoln as an historic yet highly innovative city and the contribution made by Siemens to establish the first Engineering School in the UK for 20 years and to link this by electric transport is a major step forward,” Bell said.
Siemens is already engaged in a number of major projects across Europe to devise and develop solutions and business models that will help establish Electric Vehicles as a viable and attractive transport option in the near term.
In Germany, Siemens is pioneering electric vehicles across its key sites in Munich. This programme known as 4S is Siemens own employee test fleet of 10 cars. This is a pilot project begun in 2010 to learn about daily usage of e-vehicles, to test Siemens’ charging equipment and learn about driver behaviour. It is likely that Siemens will roll out similar initiatives in other countries too.
As delivery partner for Source London, the Capital’s plan to develop the UK’s largest electric vehicle charge point network with more charge points than petrol stations in the city, Siemens provides IT and services for the back office operations. Siemens capabilities in the Electric Vehicle market extend significantly further, from charging infrastructure and software to service maintenance, call-centre management and fleet services.
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