EGEB: All of New York City’s municipal vehicles will be fully electric by 2040

In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

• NYC’s mayor signed an order requiring all municipal vehicles to be electric by 2040.
• Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduce a nationwide EV charging network bill.
• A big storm headed for Europe this weekend is expected to set wind power records.

The Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB): A daily technical, financial, and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

NYC municipal vehicles will go electric

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order yesterday that will make it mandatory for more than 20,000 on-road vehicles in the city’s municipal fleet to be electric by 2040. He made the announcement in his annual State of the City address on Thursday.

This will include every garbage truck, ferry, ambulance, police cruiser, bus, car, and vehicle owned and operated by municipal agencies.

The New York Daily News reports:

There are 25,104 on-road vehicles in the fleet now, [and] just 8.5% or 2,134 are electric. The city also has 5,613 off-road vehicles like carts and light towers, and about 10% or 548 of them are electric.

The mayor’s office expects to see a 50% reduction in emissions from the fleet by 2025. The effort will cost $36 million next fiscal year and the city is assessing the price tag going forward.

De Blasio said:

To address our climate crisis, New York City needs to stop burning fossil fuels and electrify everything. That’s why we’re making our entire fleet electric by 2040 — the equivalent of taking 750,000 cars off the street.

EV Freedom Act

Andy Levin (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced the Electric Vehicle Freedom Act in the US House of Representatives on Thursday. The legislation would create a network of high-speed charging stations in the US national highway system within five years.

Levin’s and Ocasio-Cortez’s bill also proposes that those working on the network have jobs that pay well and follow “buy American” requirements, that the chargers are fast, that it would promote compatibility between chargers and cars, and that it’s Americans with Disabilities compliant.

Ocasio-Cortez said:

We’re trying to actually advance and improve our fleets and our vehicles, which means that we have to go electric and the way that we do that is with a public infrastructure.

Further, a separate bill was introduced this week by Yvette Clarke (D-NY) and others that proposes increasing EV charging stations in underserved communities.

Storm Ciara = European wind power

An Atlantic storm named Ciara is headed for Europe this weekend, and while it may wreak some havoc in the form of power outages and travel disruption, there’s a silver lining: It’s expected to result in record wind power in the UK on Saturday and Germany on Sunday.

In the UK, winds could reach up to 80 mph between 6 p.m. on Saturday and midnight on Sunday. Northern parts of mainland Europe will have strong winds, potentially including parts of northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Denmark.

When it comes to wind power, Bloomberg Green explains:

Wind provided about 19% of Britain’s electricity in 2019, a third consecutive annual record.

The UK’s previous record was set on January 7 when output peaked at 13,761 megawatts, according to grid data. Germany’s earlier all-time high was on March 3 last year.

Photo: Edgar/Unsplash