Vera Veleva (SPEE-BG) presented the excellent progress made by the project team, stating the overall mission and potential impact of the project. In terms of task implementation, over half of the tasks were over 80% completed with 80% of activities in their final stages. This article highlights for our audience the most interesting accomplishments of the project so far.
Our round table events, conducted in the Q2 -Q4 of 2022, managed to gather nearly 200 participants – in Gotse Delchev, Dospat, Zlatograd, Sandanski, Xanthi and Alexandroupolis, Kavala and in Serres, where the event was back to back with a business forum, bringing high visibility to the project. Various media publications also covered some of our events. The final RTs in Bulgaria (Ivaylovgrad, Svilengrad and Kardzhali) are scheduled for 5-7 December. The Social Media campaign, involving the creation and maintenance of a FB page, is ongoing with additional 30 posts containing very useful information on the topic of electric mobility.
The final conference would most likely be a 1-2 day event, held in March or April 2023, ideally back to back with a local/national event in order to multiply the outreach and ensure participation. It will be also streamed online. Preparatory work and identification of topics and guest lecturers is to start in January.
The writing of scientific studies is one of the project’s goals and highlights from some of the studies were presented by Thanasis Tamvakos (CERTH). Study 1 on Construction & grid connection regulations was finalised and was being prepared for submission to the JS. Study 2 on EV CS Operators and Study 3 on Interoperability platforms is ongoing with drafts completed. A Handbook for investors is also being finalised and is currently under final edit.
One of the project’s most important activities is having project representatives visiting local SMEs and negotiating the installation of EV charging stations at their premises. On the Bulgarian side, as part of this activity, we have conducted over 70 visits and consultations to SMEs and over 39 SMEs are interested in installing 62 EV charging stations. On the Greek side over 100 SMEs were identified and contacted, of which over 55 participated in networking events and over 30 expressed interest for EV charging stations.
Finally, with regards to the Interoperability Platform that would provide integrated service and payment platform to EV owners, Mr. Zaimov (PB3) reported on the most recent developments. A lot of preliminary work has been carried out in meeting and negotiating with operators from Bulgaria and Greece. Given the current developments in the sector, the project resources and the interests of the operators a limited but efficient solution to the interoperability was presented. The platform specifications and functionality for users was presented. Operability will be ensured in terms of access (software) to common information database and link to operators’ business platforms/apps for finalising the process for reserving CS and payment. Agreements of payment between operators and unified payment solution (shared RFID cards) was initiated but its finalization will remain outside the scope of this.