Winstone Jordaan (GridCars Director) and Leigh-An Becker (Solareff Project Engineer) presented at the Smart Mobility for Cities Workshop which took place in Cape Town on the 26th of September 2017. Hosted by the United Nations Organization Development Organization (UNIDO) together with the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI), the workshop aimed to “enlighten South African municipalities on smart city initiatives that can implemented to achieve specific sustainable development goals”.
Through his “Autonomy for Mobility” presentation, Winstone presented a view of the future of the automotive space. Underpinned by systems and platforms, he covered some of the drivers of autonomous vehicles, the connected car and the digital systems and platform that need to be in place to support these changes in the industry. Furthermore, he examined what systems are already in place in South Africa and how GridCars is one of the strongest driving forces behind the standards and defining the core systems to make electric vehicles a viable future transportation technology.
Leigh-An focused on the role of rooftop solar within smart cities and how these solutions can cost effectively deliver the charging station infrastructure required to support electric vehicles within South Africa. She examined the international adoption of Solar PV technology, and reviewed the substantial environmental benefits that solar PV solutions can offer, in addition to being a proven solution to overcome grid capacity limitations.
Solareff and GridCars are proud to have participated in this valuable workshop.
