Nottingham City Homes' Story
By making the housing services organisation within council more environmentally sustainable, Nottingham City Council is helping to play our part in addressing climate breakdown. We have already introduced some electric vehicles to the growing fleet, including cars to replace our fleet of petrol pool cars, and four vans that are used to answer distress calls from customers of Nottingham on Call, our care alarm service, and that have replaced diesel vehicles.
We've also installed electric vehicle charge points at our offices in Harvey Road, Bilborough, thanks to funding from Nottingham City Council, and have used Go Ultra Low Cities funding to install a publicly accessible rapid charge point, also at Harvey Road.
There are no CO2 emissions from the electric vehicles, and the cost to charge them is just 14p per kWh.
We're now looking to change our entire fleet to electric vehicles, embracing new technologies and reducing the use of fossil fuels as much as possible, and are trialling various options with our staff.
Useful Learnings from Nottingham City Homes
Nottingham City Homes have engaged nationally with manufacturers and other local authorities since 2015 to develop an understanding of the electric vehicle market and innovation within.
Nottingham City Council are a leader in the market to install electric vehicle technologies within its commercial vehicle fleet Nottingham City Homes have been keen to be part of this progress and as such we have formed a close working relationship with the council. This partnership has enabled us to understand the progress of the electric vehicle market, along with successfully applying for and receiving funding to support the purchase of the electric vehicles we already have within our fleet.
Access to an adequate vehicle charging infrastructure has been and continues to be the greatest challenge to successfully operating an electric vehicle fleet. Local and central government agencies have installed and continue to install a number of vehicle chargers across the central region, however the challenge is to gain access to the amount of funding required and then continue to install the chargers at the rate required to successfully meet the requirements of operating an electric fleet.
The overall cost of purchasing an electric vehicle continues to be a challenge, even though a certain amount of funding to offset the cost has been available by central government. Life cycle costs are forecast to be reduced due to lower maintenance and fuel costs, and it is envisaged that electric vehicles will have a longer life cycle. Producing a business case to support purchase is a challenge due to a number of uncertainties around life cycle costs, as actual data available is limited.
The journey to replace our fleet with electric-type vehicles continues, and one that we are committed to completing, with the continuing support of manufacturers, local government and our own colleagues to make this change to support the environment.
Nottingham City Homes' Metrics
Staff engagement.
Reduction in emissions.
