„Injected by Windpower“: Windräder treiben Elektroautos in den Niederlanden an

„Injected by Windpower“: Wind turbines drive electric cars in the Netherlands

May 6, 2020

Volkswagen Financial Services is engaged in many ways to ensure that economic and ecological success go hand in hand. Now, the company's own wind turbines provide electricity for electric cars in the Netherlands.

The world of tomorrow will be electric. Although electric vehicles are currently still a niche market, registrations are rising rapidly. This has meant that the Center of Automotive Management 2019 recorded a Europe-wide increase of almost 50 percent in new registrations compared to the previous year. With its e-offensive and the new ID. family, the Volkswagen Group is making a significant contribution to expanding the product range - both with ranges suitable for everyday use and with attractive prices. Combined with the steadily growing network of charging facilities, the switch to the new technology is no longer too difficult.

Nevertheless, drivers who want to be particularly environmentally friendly on the road must rely on being able to travel with green electricity. This is due to the electric vehicle showing its full potential in this situation. In 2019, the share of green electricity differed greatly throughout Europe. In Germany, according to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute, the share of renewable energies was already 46 percent. In the Netherlands, according to the German-Dutch Chamber of Commerce, this figure was only 8.6 percent last year. However, in the coming years, this share will gradually increase, so that in 2023, renewable sources will cover 16 percent of the energy demand.

And this is precisely where Volkswagen Financial Services in the Netherlands now comes in. Two wind turbines were purchased to enable its customers to operate an electric fleet with 100 percent green electricity. The two wind turbines, located in Rouveen in the north of the Netherlands, produce around 9.5 million kilowatt hours of green electricity per year. This is enough for the annual consumption of around 4,000 electric vehicles.

"As an automotive financial services provider, we want to give our customers the opportunity to charge their electric cars sustainably with green electricity. We call this program 'Injected by WindPower'," says Ernst Jan van Eijkelenburg, Managing Director of Volkswagen Pon Financial Services in the Netherlands and continues: "This means that our customers are completely emission-free. In the Netherlands, like the entire Volkswagen Group, we feel committed not only to the Paris Climate Agreement adopted in 2015 and the associated two-degree target, but also explicitly to the environment in our neighbourhood."

The project is part of a comprehensive package of measures taken by Volkswagen Financial Services with the aim of combining economic and ecological necessities. In Germany, for example, the electric mobility programme "The Blue Fleet" was launched. Under this programme, Volkswagen Financial Services offers its fleet customers all aspects of electric mobility from a single source. At the same time, the Brunswick-based financial services provider invests in climate-related moorland protection projects - to the same extent as the electric vehicles use fossil fuels according to the current German electricity mix. And that's not all: with the ambition of operating climate-neutrally at the Brunswick headquarters from 2023, Lars Henner Santelmann, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Financial Services AG, set the direction right at the start of 2020.

Currently, Volkswagen Pon Financial Services in the Netherlands is working on the final product design for its customers. If the pilot project is well received by customers, further expansion is planned.