Charging infrastructure as a regional driver -webinar
SPARCS
26 april 2022 | Location: Espoo
Smart Cities Smart Mobility

On the 7th of April, SPARCS and Smart Otaniemi arranged a webinar on e-mobility, with a focus on charging infrastructure as a driver for regional growth. The short webinar, dubbed as a morning coffee event, was hosted by Specialist Joni Mäkinen from the City of Espoo and the SPARCS project. The webinar consisted of two excellent presentations from two Finnish experts of the field, Marko Paakkinen from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Joona Töyräs from Plugit Finland OY.
In his presentation, Marko Paakkinen aimed to shed more light on the role of cities and municipalities in the development of public charging infrastructure. Marko stressed the accelerating electrification of Finnish vehicles, and how this change is not limited to private vehicles. Charging infrastructure needs to facilitate upscaling towards electrified commercial transport, including taxis, courier services and heavy-duty transport. As technology is constantly developing, municipalities need to minimize the lock-in towards rigid charging solutions to make room for new innovations. In the second presentation of the event, Joona Töyräs provided an overview of the charging infrastructure within one of the SPARCS demonstration districts, the Sello shopping centre in Espoo, Finland. He explained the development work done during SPARCS and gave some recommendations for the development of local mobility hubs from the perspective of Plugit Finland.
The webinar gave listeners a lot of food for thought on the lessons learned from the Sello use case, and their application to other municipalities through the knowledge gained from the initial, broader presentation. This was also seen in the active discussion that followed the presentations from the approximately 30 attendees. This initial SPARCS and Smart Otaniemi webinar collaboration proved to be a success, shining a positive light for possible future events.