Yesterday we told you of the impending announcement of a deal involving Denmark and Project Better Place. Now that it has been made official, we have the details of the agreement straight off the Project Better Place website.

Basically what we have here is the first date, in the form of a letter of intent, of what both parties hope will be a long and fruitful relationship. The stated aim of the entwining is to reduce CO₂ emitted by the Danish car fleet. The parties involved are Project Better Place and DONG, which is an energy company owned mostly by the Danish government. Though not mentioned on the PBP website, other articles about the deal state that a country-wide network of recharging stations will eventually be installed, though no references to battery-swapping were made.

Besides emission reductions, DONG believes other benefits will come about through Better Place Denmark. "With this project, we hope to contribute substantially to reducing CO2 emissions from Danish cars. At the same time, we will achieve a new way of storing the unstable electricity output from wind turbines, as EVs are typically charged during the night, when the exploitation of power generation is low. This provides optimum exploitation of our resources for the benefit of the environment," said Anders Eldrup, the CEO of DONG Energy.

Hopefully the Danish project will serve as a model of how renewable energy sources and the electrification of transportation can work together with synergy to solve some of our more pressing problems.

[Source: Project Better Place]

As our faithful readers are aware, we reported last November that the government of Denmark has been talking with Project Better Place about the possibility of setting up an electric car program along with a charging station network. Now comes word of the impending official announcement of the initial pilot program.

The Israeli business news publication Globes is reporting that the Danish government will announce that Shai Agassi's much touted Project Better Place, with financing help from its major investor, Israel Corp, will begin a program to study the feasibility of the project in Copenhagen and other locations.

Not only have Danish officials recently visited Israel to meet with the company, but a prototype of the project's electric car, based on the Renault Megane (pictured above) has already been shipped in the opposite direction and may be on hand for tomorrow's announcement.


[Source: Globes]

The Zap Xebra is the little electric vehicle that can. It's not the most powerful or safety-tested vehicle on the road, but it does offer zero-emission transportation and carrying capacity and is available today. For electric car scientists at Lithium Balance in Copenhagen, the current-model Xebras with lead acid batteries were lacking and so they teamed up with Zap to develop lithium-ion battery Xebras that can go 152 miles per charge. This upgrade to the Xebra's capabilities - the current range for a Xebra is 25 miles - will be offered to customers "in the near future." While the benefits of lithium-ion batteries such as the increased range and a lighter battery are touted in the press release (read it after the break), the price is not mentioned. Any guesses as to what li-ion will do to the Xebra sedan's $10,500 price tag?

[Source: Zap, h/t to Domenick]

Who woulda thunk that the first hydrogen-powered community would be Vestenskov, Denmark? In the next couple years, that will be a reality, as the Lolland Hydrogen Community will be installing Micro Combined Heat and Power stations in 35 homes.

In Nakskov, an island of Lolland, their main power source is generated by wind power, and using that renewable source of energy, they generate 50 percent more power than they use. The excess power is going to be routed into electrolysis to make hydrogen fuel cells. While electrolysis is a very inefficient energy conversion method, using a renewable energy source negates the issue. To make the process more efficient, the oxygen split off from the hydrogen in the electrolysis process will be sent to the municipal water treatment facility to speed up their biological processes.

This project is made possible by a joint partnership between IRD Fuel Cells, Baltic Sea Solutions, the Municipality of Lolland, and funding from the Danish Energy Authority. So how does it feel to be shown up by the little guys?

[Source: Baltic Sea Solutions via RenewableEnergyAccess.com]