The Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC) has announced it will commit £595,000 (C$956,338) to support a utility-owned and operated overhead charging system for transit electrification in Newmarket, Ontario.
In what is reportedly a first in North America, local utility company Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution will own and operate an on-route charging system for a public transit agency, as part of the ongoing Pan-Canadian Electric Bus Demonstration and Integration Trial.
Phase I of the trial was launched at TransLink in Vancouver in April 2018 as part of a national initiative to advance zero emissions transit technology across Canada.
Led by CUTRIC, the project comprises a consortium of utilities, manufacturers, transit agencies, cities, funding partners, and research teams to expand Canada’s capacity for zero-carbon EV technologies.
“Newmarket is a global leader in utility-led ownership and operation of high-power charging systems on behalf of a public transit agency,” said Josipa Petrunic, CEO, CUTRIC. “This has never happened in Canada or anywhere else in North America. Utilities across the continent are watching to see how Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution has been able to achieve this impressive financial and technical feat in the transit electrification world.”
Starting in 2019, Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution will purchase, install, operate and maintain a high-powered 450kW Siemens charging system on behalf of York Region Transit on Route 55 in Newmarket, Ontario.
The charging system is designed to the OppCharge protocol to ensure that it is interoperable with multiple makes and models of electric buses in the future. It also features an inverted pantograph that connects to the buses while they are operating on route and picking up passengers.
CUTRIC will work with the utility company to collect real-time data from the charger and up to six electric buses that plug into it over the next three years as part of a Canada-wide Electric Bus Big Data Trust, which CUTRIC is developing with municipal partners for launch in 2020.
The Trust will allow transit agencies and cities to log into a cloud platform and view how electric chargers and electric buses operate in any given Canadian city at any point in time. It will also allow publicly-owned utilities to do the same.
For the CUTRIC demonstration, New Flyer will provide its Xcelsior Charge battery-electric buses, and Nova Bus, part of Volvo Group, will provide its LFSe battery-electric buses. Both will use Siemens’ on-route rapid overhead charging system, which will allow the buses to stay in service indefinitely throughout the day by charging up in intervals of a few minutes each time the buses stop at the end point of their route.
