Sustainable Transportation Capabilities and Impacts of the USAID-NREL Partnership (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video Sustainable Transportation Capabilities and Impacts of the USAID-NREL Partnership.

[Song playing, videos of transportation and electric vehicles appear on screen]

>>Sanjini Nanayakkara, Project Manager, NREL: The USAID-NREL partnership, our goal is to really empower and support our country partners in reaching their climate, energy, and development goals.

>> Daniella Rough, International Program Coordinator, NREL: We work with our government partners as well as other implementing partners and in-country strategic partners to help accelerate progress towards countries’ decarbonization strategies, towards countries’ energy transition targets, and really just supporting them in the whole gamut of the energy sector.

>> Caley Johnson, Transportation Market Analyst, NREL: We really have expertise in many different fields that all kind of come together in sustainable transportation and, in particular, in electric vehicles.

>> Sanjini: The transportation sector is starting to be one of the highest emitting sectors globally, when you think about the carbon emissions. And transportation is also closely linked to economic development. It's how people move around. So it's not just about a vehicle. It's not about a type of vehicle. It's about why and how people move from A to B.

>> Daniella: Transport not only contributes to this kind of overall target of reducing emissions, but it also has a huge impact on local emissions, which affect our health. It's a really great opportunity to address both environmental impacts but also the social impacts. So really we're trying to address all of the factors, you know, making the streets safer, making the air safer to breathe and healthier to breathe, as well as ultimately providing tools that help our countries reach their net-zero targets.

>> Caley: We did a detailed cost-benefit study for the BRT system in Bogota, Colombia, the TransMilenio.

>> Daniella: We're also working a lot in Colombia with rural and indigenous communities, ensuring that there is this kind of energy equity, energy justice approach to the energy transition in Colombia. So we're working on providing training, capacity building with indigenous communities.

>> Dustin Weigl, Sustainable Mobility Researcher, NREL: We used the EVI-Pro model in Colombia by using this survey that was run in 2019 that gathered travel data from survey participants in the greater Bogota urban area. And we can use this to estimate where the hottest travel destinations are in the city and that tells us those are the locations that might need more electric vehicle charging.

[Animation of document pages from USAID Colombia Young Leaders Workforce Training Program Action Plans]

>> Daniella: As a result of this, we have a very tailored tool for Bogota that utilizes specific electricity costs, kind of infrastructure considerations, geographic considerations, as well as kind of linking that to the projected plans of Bogota.

[Animation of the EVI-Pro Colombia Tool.]

[Text on screen: Charing Station Growth from 2025-2030]

>> Diana Orrego, Energy Regulation Advisor, Grupo de Energia de Bogota (GEB), english translation: Working with NREL, we provide them with information from the operator, from the mobility secretary, and our inputs, and NREL uses that to develop a tool adapted to Bogota for planning of infrastructure in the city of Bogota. This supports discussions that are necessary in order to construct the infrastructure here in Bogota, and once the charging infrastructure is in place, people will be able to purchase their electric vehicle without problems.

>> Sean Esterly, Project Manager, NREL: EBSA has begun transitioning their fleet to electric vehicles. They are moving forward with that and our analysis had an impact on that and helped them do that. So it's very exciting to see real world impacts while you're still working on the project, especially.

>> Thomas Black, Director of Renewable Energy, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Colombia: We see an entire economic development program, not only in the energy sector itself, not only in the energy projects themselves, but in all the subsectors of those economies regionally and nationally.

>> Daniella: Having the ability to provide technical assistance from all of these different angles provides a complete package that really creates confidence in our in-country partners to move forward with their highly ambitious plans and targets.

>> Dustin: So if we can address the transportation needs while making it more sustainable and reducing those emissions, then that's making great strides towards reducing emissions globally across the board.

>> Thomas: NREL's specialists have been really world class. They've got a modern vision of the role of renewable energy in all of its different spheres and aspects, markets, regulation, technology, and I think what we've done with NREL, and what we've done with the U.S. Energy Agency and our Scaling Up Renewable Energy program has really been special.

[Animated USAID and NREL logos with the words "For more information, visit: nrel.gov/usaid-partnership"]