New webinars helping to remove barriers to EV ownership in Louth

^{ABOVE: FASTER Project steering group members from East Border Region, South West College, University of Strathclyde and HiTrans alongside elected officials from Monaghan County Council, Meath County Council and Newry Mourne and Down District Council travelled to Dundee recently on a fact-finding trip, hosted by Gary McRae and Claire Pennington from Urban Foresight.} 

An EU-funded programme set up to help facilitate a sustainable transition to electric vehicle use in Northern Ireland, Louth and the other border counties of the Republic, and western Scotland is planning another series of webinars aimed at answering practical questions around EV ownership. 

The FASTER Project is a €6.4 million EU-funded initiative under the INTERREG VA programme. set up to support the overarching ambition to transition to low carbon transport systems and to demonstrate how each of the three jurisdictions can provide early systems learning in relation to electrification of transport.

The project is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body to facilitate the transition to electric vehicles. Match-funding for the FASTER project has also been provided by the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland and the Department for Transport in Ireland, as well as Transport Scotland. 

One of its main tasks will be to implement the installation of 73 rapid charging stations (50KW capacity and above) across the programme area. This is in response to research which shows one of the main barriers to electric vehicle uptake is the lack of public charging sites and in particular rapid charging infrastructure.

The FASTER Project webinar series produced by South West College kicks off on Wednesday April 19 at 10am when host Dr Euan McTurk will examine the topical issue of electricity prices and ask if it’s still cheaper to drive an electric vehicle.

The webinar programme will also look at the following topics:

• May 24, 10am - Do you need a driveway to run an electric vehicle?
• June 14, 10am – Profit or pitfalls? How easy is it to make money from hosting charge points?
• September 13, 10am – Do we need private cars? Micro-mobility and future transport trends.
• October 25, 10am – FASTER in Scotland and the evolving EV landscape.
• November 29, 10am – FASTER in Ireland and its impact on the EV charging network.

The latest series follows on from a successful opening round of webinars which included respected industry guest panellists. Recordings of the first series, which concluded in February, have been viewed more than 40,000 times on the FASTER Project’s YouTube channel.

Topics for discussion included ‘Basics of EV Ownership’, ‘Buying a Used or New EV’, ‘Public EV Charging in NI’, ‘Caring for Your EV & the Costs of Ownership’.

Host, Dr Euan McTurk is a battery electrochemist who has been working with battery tech and driving electric vehicles since 2009. He said: “The popularity of the webinars is an indication of the growing interest in electric vehicles.

“They are a really good tool for educating people about the transition to EVs and enhancing awareness of electric vehicles across the project’s jurisdiction. 

“We have worked hard to bring topics forward which help answer people’s practical questions around ownership of electric vehicles. A lot of the webinars cover areas which may not necessarily appear on a car brochure but nonetheless can be barriers to the uptake of EVs.”

To sign up to join the live webinar https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DlHH3DzXSJ6x9jKa6uhsWg#/registration For more information on the FASTER Project visit www.fasterevcharge.com