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NETWORK / 32 / DECEMBER 2017 / JANUARY 2018 ELECTRIC VEHICLES Learning from Norway I n the upward trajectory towards a low carbon world and electrification of transport in particular, there is one country that is on a stellar path - way, and a long way ahead of every- one else – Norway. "Norway envy" is something that is o•en intimated by professionals in the energy sector, caused by virtually zero carbon energy generation from their enormous hydro-electric power resources and that most of their building heat is derived from this lovely clean elec - tricity as well! So the transport domain is one of the remaining chapters in Norway's low carbon showcase to the world, and they are doing well. Driven by a very broad set of incen - tives and strong public acceptance of this transition, the rate of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Norway o•en has to be shown on truncated axes on graphs when being compared to other countries. Electric vehi- cles now account for 42 per cent of new car sales and the number of vehicles is already over 100,000. This compares to UK sales rates of approximately two per cent and a UK vehicle population of 126,000. Given the population differences between the two countries, the number of EVs per capita in Norway works out at approximately 10 times that of the UK, so depending on which of the many UK growth forecasts you look at they are a "few years" ahead of us in EV density. This astonishing progress is matched by equally astonishing goals with a target of all new cars, buses and light commercial vehicles sold by 2025 to be zero carbon. And if that wasn't enough, Oslo spe - cifically has a goal of all new cars in Oslo to be fossil free by 2020. A trip to Oslo The UK is still in the early days of its own journey to EV nirvana with our current EV fleet representing less than 0.1% per cent of the UK's national power needs. While there is much innovation activity in the UK by distribution network operators (DNOs) and others to develop smart charging and con - straint mitigation solutions ahead of mass adoption, we recognised that there must also be insights in the Norway journey that could help us here in the UK. So we took the decision to visit Oslo back in June. Their energy system is very different of course, as is their geo-social landscape, but on the basis that we "didn't know what we didn't know" we wanted to find out what an EV Stakeholders from the UK and Norway came together to discuss the country's rollout and adoption of electric vehicles. Mark Thompson, senior innovation lead – energy systems at Innovate UK, looks at what the UK can learn from Norway when it comes to the deployment of electric vehicles.