Better Place today announced that together with Danish wind energy company DONG Energy A/S, it has secured €103 million in equity and convertible debt for the initial deployment of their electric car charging network in Denmark.
DONG Energy will assist in the Better Place Denmark network rollout and will be the preferred supplier of renewable energy to power the network. The move sets the stage for Better Place and DONG Energy to enable the widespread adoption of mass-market vehicles in Denmark by 2011.
Better Place also named Jens Moberg as Head of Better Place Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Business Development and CEO of Better Place Denmark. As CEO, Mr. Moberg will focus on establishing Denmark as its first operation in Europe and play a significant role in expanding Better Place to other European countries. He joins Better Place Denmark from Microsoft Corp.
Better Place CEO Shai Agassi said, “With the UN Summit on Climate Change around the corner, Denmark has the opportunity to demonstrate to the world what the future of transportation will look like."
In March 2008, Better Place named Better Place Denmark as its second operator following Israel, which recently unveiled its first installed electric charge spots. Starting in 2011, the Renault-Nissan Alliance will begin to commercialize a complete range of electric vehicles especially adapted to Danish customer requirements.
Denmark, which has access to depleting oil reserves in the North Sea, currently generates about 20% of its electric power from wind-generating utilities, including DONG Energy. To date, 7% of wind-generated power within Denmark is exported to other countries because there is no way for utilities to store the excess power. With the Better Place model, Denmark now has the opportunity to leverage the existing electric grid and electric vehicle batteries to harness and store the abundance of wind-generated power and distribute appropriately for transportation consumption.
The Danish government encourages its society to switch from petrol-based cars to zero emission vehicles and is committed to helping the country reduce its CO2 emissions by 21% by 2012. Just by switching all vehicles to electric, Denmark could effectively reduce its current CO2 emissions by 17%. Today, the Danish government offers incentives consumers to purchase zero emission vehicles by applying zero tax for zero emission vehicles while applying up to a 180% tax on the purchase of petrol-based cars.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 27, 2009
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