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SAB discusses proposal for E-Bike share system

Christopher Kelley
Posted 6/7/23

The Nederland Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB) met on Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 6:45 p.m. to discuss an E-Bike proposal from Drop Mobility, as well as a proposal from Partners In Energy to

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SAB discusses proposal for E-Bike share system

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The Nederland Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB) met on Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 6:45 p.m. to discuss an E-Bike proposal from Drop Mobility, as well as a proposal from Partners In Energy to perform a free gap analysis to track Nederland’s baseline energy use and trends in renewable energy.

The SAB began their meeting by voting to recommend Rab Lachance for the vacant seat on the board. Lachance is a Renewable Energy/ Grid Integration Engineer with ten years of experience who expressed his excitement to assist the Town of Nederland reach its goals for renewable energy, EV charging, and efficiency upgrades.

The decision whether to approve Lachance for the position of board member on the SAB will come before the Nederland Board of Trustees (BOT) on June 6, 2023.

Sustainability Coordinator Leah Haney presented to the Board a discussion about Canadian-based “micro-mobility solutions provider” Drop Mobility’s hub-based E-Bike share system proposal for Nederland. The plan would provide Class 1 e-bikes with a 16 mph maximum speed, a 350 Watt BAFANG electric motor, and 36 volt 14.0Ah batteries that give the rider a 35 mile range on a full charge.

An integrated app allows for users to easily locate vehicle hubs. The hubs are designed to be easily expanded, relocated, and adjusted, and can be equipped with hardware in order to anchor it to an existing structure, like a concrete pad.

All of Drop Mobility’s bikes are equipped with “lock-to-cable technology,” with users being instructed at the end of their trip to use a cable to tether the bike to hubs or other acceptable infrastructure or locations, such as other town bike posts or racks, and to take a photo of the locked bike through the app.

GPS chips on the e-bikes allow for an operations team to easily collect and “rebalance” the bikes to their hubs.

Drop Mobility requires a co-investment with the Town and recommends 20 e-bikes for year one at a cost of $2,850 per unit. With eight additional batteries, the installation and wayfinding signage for three hub racks, one-time software development, and monthly software connectivity and maintenance costs, the total cost of the program for year one would be $79,850.

The total cost does not reflect a required budget for “ground operations, rebalancing, maintenance, training, and customer support.”

The estimated total revenue for year one would be $9,450, which Drop Mobility is proposing a revenue share at a 75/25 split. Nederland’s 75% share would be used for daily operations of the program as well as marketing and inevitable expansion.

Board members mostly agreed that the program did not fit Nederland’s needs and expressed that the town’s small size and cold climate would affect the financial viability of the proposal. It was also noted that small businesses should provide such a service for the town rather than the town having to pay into a program.

The SAB discussed the proposal from Xcel Energy, and their community collaboration organization Partners in Energy, to complete a free renewable electricity gap analysis, which would provide data tracking Nederland’s energy usage and potentially assist the town in reaching its goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2025.

The proposal details that from using data from 2019 to 2022, in addition to an analytical approach, the gap remaining for the Town to reach its goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2025 will be identified by “estimating the likely contribution of growth and energy efficiency on the forecasted 2025 electricity use for the Town as well as the likely contribution of renewable energy program participation.”

This data, as well as potential strategies for Nederland to consider to close any gap, will be provided to the SAB at a future meeting.

Board members expressed concern about the limitations of the gap analysis, considering it would be based on Xcel data and would focus primarily on electricity usage, but ultimately decided that the raw data from the free analysis would be beneficial to the town.

The Nederland Sustainability Advisory Board meets on the fourth Thursday of every month. Their next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 22, 2023, at 6:45 p.m. and can be attended online. For more information go to: https:// townofnederland.colorado.gov/ sustainability-advisory-board.