Oslo: The City With The Most Electrified Transportation System In The World
Jul 18, 2023 7:01 am
Oslo: The City With The Most Electrified Transportation System In The World
3 min read
The city of Oslo is electrifying its entire transportation system. From cars, buses, trains, trams, bikes, to ferries and construction vehicles, Oslo is on a mission to electrify them all. This is in line with their 2030 goal of reducing emissions by 95% and the Paris Agreement aim of keeping the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Since transportation and construction account for 67% of Oslo’s greenhouse gas emissions, that is what we are going to focus on in this article.
The Oslo 2022 Climate Agreement states that Oslo will meet its 95% emissions reduction goal in the transportation sector by using the following measures, among others:
- Zero emissions construction sites by 2025
- Zero emissions road transport
- Zero emissions public transport by 2023
Zero emissions construction sites by 2025
This measure states that all construction vehicles must be zero emissions by 2025. This includes vehicles that transport the construction workers to and from the construction site. Norwegian construction company, Braathen, uses electric excavators, vans, trucks, tippers and has even manufactured their own electric compactor due to not being able to find one in the market. These heavy-duty vehicles use the same chargers as normal electric cars, making it easy and effective to charge them.
Zero emissions road transport
Road transportation is responsible for almost 50% of Oslo’s CO2 emissions, with cars being the single highest contributor. This is why all new cars sold in Norway must be electric by 2025. In 2020, Norway had the most EVs per capita in the world. They had 81 EVs for every 1 000 residents.
The country already started implementing EV incentives back in the 1990s through lower taxes, free parking and charging, no charges on toll roads, access to bus lanes, waived annual road tax and more. The Loyds Paxster, the only Norwegian-made EV, is being used to deliver packages for Norwegian Post. There are 3 500 Paxsters being used around Europe in the postage, food delivery and e-scooter industries. Oslo also has a vast number of e-scooters around the city.
According to TIER, Oslo had more e-scooters per resident than any other city in the world, with 200 e-scooters per 10 000 residents, being operated by 12 e-scooter rental companies. As a comparison, Berlin, Paris and Rome all had less than 50.
Estimated number of plug-in electric vehicles in use in selected countries as of 2022 (in 1 000 units)
Zero emissions public transport by 2023
Oslo plans to replace the remaining less than 150 diesel buses with electric ones by the end of this year, which will make it the first city in the world to have a fully electric public transportation system.
Oslo also has fully electric passenger ferries which are designed in Norway and made in Turkey. These ferries hold 1 017 kWh batteries, 10 times more than the top of the range Tesla Models S and X. Even with such enormous batteries, it only takes 6 minutes to charge the ferry for a 1-hour roundtrip when charging at a power of 2 000 kW. As a comparison, the usual electric car is charged at 11 kW. One ferry could run for 3 hours without charging and has backup generators just in case.
All 72 trams in Oslo are electric, covering over 131 km of tram track. Oslo’s subway trains are also electric, covering 5 lines and 101 stations. Almost all these modes of public transport are powered by green energy, with 95% of Norway’s electricity production stemming from hydropower.
Norway’s green status in a broader view
What makes Oslo so successful is that they drafted a climate budget in 2016 to help them meet their 2030 emissions goals. It functions like a financial budget, except instead of money they use carbon emissions. Each sector, such as passenger vehicles, has a maximum amount of carbon emissions that it is not allowed to exceed.
However, Norway has faced criticism for its massive fossil fuel export operations. Norway exports almost all of the oil and gas that it produces, making oil and gas the biggest industry in the country. This oil emits quite a lot of CO2, inside Norway during production and outside of Norway during use. The country is also investing in making its oil extraction run exclusively on wind energy.
So what do you think? Should all cities in the world follow Oslo’s example of being fully zero emissions as soon as possible or is it too early for electrification? Let me know in the comments below!
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