Smart street lights charge cars in the municipality of Renkum
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Climate targets and exponential demand for charging points
The need for charging stations is growing exponentially. Around 2.3 million electric cars are expected to be driving on Dutch roads in 2030. In order to charge all of these vehicles, hundreds of thousands of charging stations will have to be installed in the coming years. However, the rollout is not keeping pace with these requirements. Approximately 100 charging points are currently being rolled out per day. This figure should actually be 600 per day to meet both the requirements and the climate targets for 2030. Municipalities are struggling to find places for all these charging points. In addition, the installation of individual charging stations is leading to an increasingly cluttered streetscape.
Smart street lighting helps the energy transition
Besides the fact that – in accordance with the Climate Agreement – municipalities must have sufficient charging points by 2030, they must also have reduced their own energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 50%. The CityCharge charging street light from Smart City Netherlands helps to achieve this. The integration of an EV charging function in the street light solves the shortage of charging points for electric cars. In addition, the dimmable LED lighting in the smart street light reduces the energy consumption of municipalities. Heimen Visser, Fund Manager for Communication Infrastructure & Smart Cities at Primevest: ‘The multifunctional street lights blend seamlessly into the existing streetscape and therefore also prevent the cluttering of the public space. Thanks to our partners Dutch Charge, CityTec and Nedal, it will also be possible to integrate IoT (Internet of Things) and 5G into the CityCharge charging street lights in the future. This will make an additional contribution to the sustainability objectives, such as saving on raw materials and more efficient management.’
Smart City Netherlands is also aiding municipalities by advancing the purchase costs of the smart charging points, allowing municipalities to spread the costs over several years. This helps to accelerate the sustainability of towns and villages.
Smart City Netherlands makes Renkum future-proof
The municipality of Renkum is the first municipality to make use of the Smart City Netherlands initiative. It has already enabled them to replace 6,300 existing street lights with energy-saving and dimmable street lighting. This has resulted in a 79% reduction in energy consumption, which means they are already meeting the 2030 climate targets and keeping their energy costs affordable. With the installation of future-proof CityCharge street lights, they are once again the first to take the next step in the energy transition.
‘With the commissioning of this multifunctional and sustainable infrastructure, Renkum is the first municipality in the Netherlands to combine public lighting and electric car charging in this way. We expect other municipalities to follow suit soon. Our Smart City Netherlands model can easily be scaled up’, says Visser.
Smart City Netherlands collaboration structure
Smart City Netherlands is a collaboration between BNG Bank and Primevest Capital Partners, an organisation that helps to make cities future-proof. As a partner for municipalities, the Smart City Netherlands initiative ties in perfectly with BNG Bank's ambition to achieve social objectives such as the energy transition in the public sector. The initiative can be applied in any municipality. BNG Bank is providing the financing for the municipality of Renkum (and, if possible, also for other municipalities in the future) within the Smart City Netherlands collaboration structure. In this system, the municipality guarantees the interest and repayments.
Driven by social impact
BNG Bank is of and for the public sector. Everything we do revolves around creating social impact. We discuss this with our clients. We make choices on that basis. We are not motivated by profit, but by social impact. That is what drives us.
