The new charging stations were installed at the Auditorium and the Multimediapaviljoen at the end of November already. A third station is planned for 2013 at the intended biofuel gas station on campus, near Gemini. The energy used by the charging stations is pumped back into the grid through solar energy. To that end, 28 solar panels have been installed on the roof of the Multimediapaviljoen, which can generate up to 7 kilowatts of solar energy. The new charging stations and solar panels cost university close to fifty thousand euro.

TU/e campus is not yet being flooded with electric vehicles. Rick Harwig, endorser of TU/e’s Strategic Area Energy estimates the number of ‘serious’ e-drivers on campus to be anywhere between twelve and eighteen. Auke Hoekstra of Mechanical Engineering does expect that number to increase rapidly in the years to come. “The government wants to see at least 200,000 electric vehicles in the Netherlands by 2020. Looking at our campus community, that would translate to two hundred cars. And actually, I hope we’re tech-savvy enough to score a little higher than that.”