‘Green’ Greek island planned

Volkswagen and Greece have agreed to replace about 1500 internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with 1000 EVs on the 99.97sq km Mediterranean island of Astypalea to create a “smart green island”.

The island will also have electric scooters and e-bikes, with a charging infrastructure installed, but New Zealand’s Waiheke Island has an Electric Island Waiheke project well underway with the aim of becoming the world’s first all-electric residential island with only EVs by 2030.

Waiheke Island’s project takes another step this week with an electric bus fleet being launched by
Fullers360 in partnership with Auckland Transport, making Waiheke the first Auckland suburb to have a sustainable transport fleet.

And Waiheke will also host an EVs and Beyond conference on March 1 and 2, 2021, after a successful inaugural conference there just before the COVID-19 national lockdown in March this year.

An EV Expo is planned at the Waiheke High School on Sunday, February 28, 10am-3pm. An EV Pride Day to get the most EVs in one place is scheduled the day before (February 27) at Placemakers Waiheke car park at 2.15pm.

No start date is provided for Astypalea but the project is expected to last six years, powered by wind and solar energy.

An existing bus system will be replaced with ride-share and car-share solutions, with emergency services and fleet vehicles also transitioning to EVs.

The island has about 1300 residents but is usually visited by 72,000 tourists annually.

Another island aiming to become electric is Porto Santo, which has begun using solar power to charge up batteries in EVs to return any spare power to the island’s home network at night.