Dundee City Council
The first ever phase of deploying electric vehicles into Dundee City Council’s fleet tied in with the launch of the first Nissan Leaf's in 2011. The introduction of the first four cars was also supported by the first charging devices being installed at one of the depots. Since then, Dundee City Council has installed charging infrastructure at multiple council depots and offices to support its full-electric carpool scheme. In addition to this, charging infrastructure has been built to support individual services such as construction, waste management and social work depots. This movement was heavily supported by Dundee City Council’s leaders, who prioritised the transport transition to combat air pollution and reduce emissions in the city.
A milestone in the electrification progress within the fleet was the introduction of electric minibuses, sweepers and RCVs. It was part of the council’s strategy to deploy several different types of electric HGVs to put these new technologies to the test and examine what would work well with our operations and what charging infrastructure to expand and to support wider deployment of these HGVs in the future. The electric fleet has been continuously growing for over a decade and is now at over 200 vehicles (around 36% of the whole fleet).
Recently, the focus of our projects has matured from strengthening our electric fleet and providing a strong foundation of EV infrastructure to transitioning to the sole use of renewable energy and moving away from dependence on the grid. As part of our decarbonisation strategy, we have redeveloped two of our depot sites, which now feature photovoltaics systems further supported by energy storage units. Read more here.