FOLLOWING a pledge to spend over £50m on a transition to low and zero emissions vehicles for their fleet, the City of Edinburgh Council may spend even more on electric vehicle infrastructure (EVI).
In yesterday’s Finance and Resources Committee, the council deferred until next Thursday the decision on how to achieve the funding required to meet the growing demands on Edinburgh’s EVI as it transitions to a full low and zero emissions fleet.
It comes as part of the Fleet Asset Management Plan, which laid out a roadmap for the council to eventually phase out all fossil fuel buses, bin lorries, vans, and utility vehicles currently in use for electric or low emission alternatives
The report to the council laid out three options: ether the council can do nothing and continue with the infrastructure it already has, use privately built, charging-as-service (CAS) infrastructure, or build its own additional infrastructure.
The report states that building the council’s own electric vehicle infrastructure would cost just under £384,126, but the report insists that this is the best solution.
If the council were to outsource for its EVI needs, it would cost millions over an eight-year period and leave the council with the “hard shock” of having to procure alternative EVI after the conclusion of the contract.
The report also claims that the entire cost of the council building and managing its own EVI infrastructure could be covered by prudential borrowing.
This means that interest payments of £123,000 could be incurred, taking the total cost to just over £500,000.
Decisions on whether the prudential borrowing would be approved was delayed until the full council meeting next Thursday in line with another of the report’s recommendations, however.
This was the route taken by the council in November 2023, when the Finance and Resources Committe agreed to over £50m of prudential borrowing to bring the fleet in line with low emission zone (LEZ) regulations.
Finance and Resources Convener, Councillor Mandy Watt said:
“We’ve already approved over £50m of investment to transition our entire fleet to low and zero emission vehicles. Around a quarter of the new fleet will be electric vehicles (EV).
“As such we need to make sure that our depot sites can accommodate these new vehicles and the necessary infrastructure to charge and maintain them.
“Enabling EV charging at the seven nominated depots requires an initial investment of £385,000 but is expected to realise significant savings compared to alternative charging arrangements.
“This report was discussed in the report at Finance and Resources Committee yesterday and will be further debated by Council next week.
“Encouraging the use of more sustainable and less polluting vehicles is an important element in making our capital city more pleasant to move around.
“This is also key to ensuring that we fulfil our collective responsibilities in addressing the climate crisis and supporting transport networks that are dependable, sustainable, and resilient.”
Conservative councillor Chris Cowdy described the choice as a “no-brainer”, but asked for clarifications over the sacrifices in flexibility that the council would have to make in building its own infrastructure.
He said: “if we were to do CIS (sic), I’m guessing it would be more flexible because if technology changed then the provider of the service would update their technology, whereas if we buy in over a ten year period, we’re kind of set with that software that we buy.”
Energy and sustainability manager, Andrew Crighton, who fielded questions about the proposals said: “We have taken into consideration the change in technology.
“The one thing that we do have is as part of the Fleet Replacement Plan – we have just purchased these vehicles, and we will have these vehicles for a period of at least seven years.
“So, we will have at least seven years of the current technology that we will have in place and that we will be purchasing the correct equipment for now.
“There may be a change in seven years’ time but, at present, this is the model we need for our fleet.”
The report was agreed unanimously.
A decision will be made on funding at the full council meeting on 25 September.
