Strib Archives - Plug Me In

3 June 20163 June 2016 by Wiebe

Day 80 | A bridge too far

When I woke up in my private guest room in Strib Soren already had breakfast waiting for me. We said goodbye and the destination for today was Herstedøster, just 7km outside of Copenhagen. It was a 201km drive and to be sure that I will make it I did a pitstop in Ringsted. Lasse, the CEO of Greenow offered me a place to plug at his office. In the morning he send me an email that his daughter was born last night so he was not in the office but I could just go there to charge.

I charged for an hour and a half and did the remaining 45km to Herstedøster.

I was welcomed by Ida and Erik. Erik is Dutch and moved to Denmark a while ago and doesn’t want to return to Holland because he likes it to much. He has a technical background and works for an international company who is realizing a new signaling system for railroads in Denmark which is the new standard for Europe.

Ida is Danish and speaks Dutch too. She has a degree as zookeeper with a specialization in exotic animals. Because there is a huge oversupply in qualified people in this sector she couldn’t find a job. Ida started a two year Environment Technology study and works on a children’s book about sustainability, eco-systems, plants & animals in her spare time. She wants to make it special with a augmented reality app for more experience.

Erik is involved in a student exchange program called YFU and the last two weeks 15 students from the US and Singapore had been in Denmark to visit several sustainable energy projects. Erik invited them to come over when I was there so they could learn about electric cars and e-mobility. They where very interested in what I was doing and it was cool to meet these people. Now I also got some contacts in Singapore from when I’m there!

I reached Wim who is the mechanic of the car. I explained him the problems I had yesterday and told me that the button of the heater probably was turned on, which was right. So there was nog problem with the car, the noise was there because the heater was on, stupid me.

The group invited Erik and me to go out for dinner in Copenhagen. We went to the street food market. It’s and indoor market with food from all around the world. Indian, Mexican, Danish, American, Italian, they had everything. I choose for a “fatburger” which was a good choice.

The market was located next to the water, there was a bridge of which I thought it was closed but when I inspected it I saw there was a part in the middle missing. Apparently they ran out of money and now there are two ramps on both sides, they don’t know when it’s going to be finished. It’s a bridge to far for the Danish.

Erik drives an electric car too and has a wallbox installed at home. It was with a cable attached so I couldn’t charge my car with type 2 and used the regular plug on 16A. This would fully charge my car by the next morning.

The company where I did a pitstop

Street food in Copenhagen

The YFU people

The street market

This was bridge to far for Danish.

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2 June 20162 June 2016 by Wiebe

Day 79 | Over the bridge

When I started the car this morning I noticed that it wasn’t completely charged even though it charged all night and the LCD display was off. When the display is off it usually means the car charger completely. I checked the setting of my car and in the cell details I could see that one cell had an error. This could mean that the cell is damaged and there’s nothing to do to repair it, well then I would have to drive back to Holland and buy an expensive new one, which is not an option.
It was not the only thing I noticed, there was coming a weird low noise from under the hood. When I opened the hood the noise was very strong and it came from a object of which I didn’t know what it was.

I didn’t have much time to worry about and because on the display there where no alerts I started driving to Horsens where I had a meeting with Darius, one of the founders of Building Tomorrow.

Building Tomorrow

Building Tomorrow is an off-grid house or eco-house. The house is able to produce its own electricity, drinking water, heating / cooling, sewage treatment and partial food production meanwhile using recycled and easily accessible materials. It was originally founded by 9 students of the VIA University in Horsens, they had this plan and the Uni allowed them to build it on their grounds. The building is now finished and with the lessons they learned in the process they are going to make a second one. Later this week you will find a full article about this here on the website.

E-mobility on the campus

Darius showed me around the campus and he told me that there where other companies here also working on e-mobility. I was surprised to see that there was a electric Formula 1 car standing somewhere in the basement. The company who builded it was unfortunately not present today so can’t tell anything about it.
Another company who do was present was TADAA! Anker told explained my the concept. It’s an innovative car sharing targeting housing associations and their residents. Many renters do not necessarily have (a need for) a car – and often only drive shorter distances in and around the city. Shared electric cars can be a cheap, easy and sustainable way to offer flexible transport to the residents of the housing associations.

Trying to solve problems

Anker who told me about Tadaa was very interested in my car and luckily had some knowledge about the inside. He told me that the noise coming out of the car was probable something with the fluid of the power steering. He knew a guy working at VW in Horsens and he called me if I could come by, that was no problem.
I drove there and they inspected the car quickly. They said there was something with the waterpump of the heater. Because they where not trained in electric cars they where not allowed to touch the car and couldn’t help me. They tried to call another VW which was trained in EV’s but because my car is not standard they also couldn’t help me. Their advice was that I could keep driving the car as there where no errors on the dashboard. I’m trying to get in touch with the mechanic in Holland who converted the car but can’t reach him.

Shotgun

My pluggers that night where living in Strib, a tiny place on the island Fyn. The way to there was interesting, I had to cross this huge hanging bride to the island and when I got there the environment was different then on the mainland. I ringed their bell and one of their kids opened the door. I asked her if Kristine was home but she nodded no. I decided to go do some sightseeing as I was attracted to the nature around here. I drove to the beach where you have a nice view over the harbor on the other side. I spend here some time and then drove back to the house. When I got there Søren welcomed me, he told me he was already home when I was there but the kids didn’t understand. No problemo.

Kristine and Søren live in a old farm with four main buildings and some side houses. They drive a Tesla and a Zoe and I could park & charge my car in the stable. They charged their Tesla here too and I was surprised that they didn’t have a wallbox for that, they charge it just on a regular plug with max 10A. A full charge for a tesla would take more then two days! But as they didn’t drive long distances (like to Australia, I mean who would drive to Australia in an electric car) so the car was always charged around 90%.

Kristine who works in the IT originally comes from Norway where she and Søren lived with their two kids in Oslo. They thought it was a bit to crowded and not the perfect environment for their kids so they moved here and they think that was a good move. And if you see there house you can’t disagree. I did some work in my private guesthouse and after that, when I did a short walk on their premises, I saw Søren sitting next to the henhouse with a shotgun in is hands. Apparently rats attacked some chickens last night and they wanted to prevent that they would attack again.
Søren himself is an entrepeneur, he started an company that makes labels for clothing. These labels look like stickers but you can was then a couple of 100 times. Ideal for schoolkids etc.

Climate change

I had an interesting conversation with them about climate change. Søren used to be a professor and specialized in this subject. He told that in Norway they aren’t doing much to prevent climate change. The country has lots of oil and most Norwegians work in the oil sector. When the icecaps in the north melt they are actually happy about that because that brings new opportunities to start drilling. In Denmark they are dealing ok with this. They invest in green energy and the country wants to ban fossil fuel by 2025.