Company turns Barbados into an electric-vehicle paradise

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Spotted: Barbados-based Megapower is helping islanders take further advantage of their sunny climate. As well as selling a range of electric vehicles, the company has peppered the island with EV charging stations. There are so many that at no point is a driver more than five kilometres away from a station.

With approximately 350 electric vehicles currently on the road, Barbados is the world’s third highest user of the technology. But 96 percent of the country’s energy still comes from fossil fuels, according to Megapower co-founder Jo Edghill. The country’s government has set an ambitious target for the island of reaching 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Megapower is trying to lead by example, having recently converted its entire office power supply to off-grid resources. It is also creating what it considers to be the first EV battery re-use lab, which will, “enable us to repurpose electric vehicle batteries beyond their useful life in EVs for a number of applications and storage for renewable energy,” Edghill told Forbes.

Takeaway: Urban development is occurring at a rate that most governments are struggling to manage. The World Bank says that by 2045, more than six billion people will be living in cities. This means that service provision and access must be rethought in myriad ways. New, ecological requirements must now be taken into account in every aspect of design. Springwise has spotted other recent energy-sustaining innovations, like an educational building in Wales that generates more energy than it uses, and an electric ferry Norway that is called like an elevator. Developers hope this will help save local governments money by reducing general road and bridge construction and maintenance costs.

Website: www.megapower365.com
Email: [email protected]

Source: New feed 1