Electric, Hydrogen & Hybrid Electric Buses in Ireland

GT89 wrote: »

I wonder what length they'll go for. These buses look like the shorter wheelbase version. I'd imagine the O route will need longest wheelbase available whereas other routes will need shorter wheelbase buses due to tight turns for example the 59 which couldn't handle the Streetlites. So perhaps a mix of different lengths will be bought.

When I looked at this tender, it was for long wheelbase buses. Keep in mind most of these buses will end up in Cork, etc. with BE which use long wheel base busses.

GT89 wrote: »

The Go-Ahead Streetlites are 11.6m. These are also in use for BE in Waterford. The DB ones would be the shorter wheelbase I think they are 10.2m BE also have these in use in Waterford, Athlone, Drogheda, Dundalk, Sligo, Balbriggan and City Direct in Kilkenny.

Ah, cool, some reason I always felt like the streetlites looked a bit shorter then the other models in Cork! If they go with the Enviro200EV so, I assume most if not all will likewise be 11.6m so.

GT89 wrote: »

City Direct in Galway aren't PSO and their buses are mostly secondhand ex London buses it appears. So I'm guessing from you are suggesting that the Streetlites with BE and GAI will be replaced and withdrawn prematurely.

City Direct operate two PSO routes in Kilkenny and that is what I was talking about. I just don't know how many buses they have there. They are actually mentioned in the tender along with BE, DB and GAI.

Sam Russell wrote: »

Do these hydrogen powered buses use hydrogen as a gas in an ICE or do they use it in a fuel cell?

I assume they would need a supply of oxygen to use it in a fuel cell.

The one's being trialled by BE at the moment? They are Hydrogen Fuel Cells and they get the oxygen from outside air.

Hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicle's, including buses, where you just burn the hydrogen in an ICE engine, have existed for many years, but they aren't zero emission vehicles, they release PM and NOX, so non runners for future use.

Peregrine wrote: »

The OPW are also tendering for 8 electric single deckers. Mostly for use at Brú na Bóinne.

Brilliant, makes a lot of sense for this location, UNESCO site and all that. Which BTW is well worth a visit for anyone who has never been.

ITV2 wrote: »

PA1 the first on 74 ADL Enviro 400ER Hybrid Buses for Dublin Bus in the new Transport for Ireland Livery is seen on driver training for Broadstone Garage staff, the route 140 will go over to this type on April 12th, PA1-20 will be allocated to Broadstone Garage, PA21-41 Harristown, PA42-58 Phibsboro and PA59-74 Summerhill.

Lovely picture, the yellow and green of the new livery is nicely contrasted with the daffodils

Looks well, both the new livery and and the bus.

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Has anyone seen this Chinese built Higer bus in Dublin recently.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darren_hall/51049926126/

Interesting, looks like being trialled for the NTA tender.

They have an Irish website, so they most be relatively serious about targeting the Irish market: https://higer.ie/

The Steed EV bus they have on the website is too short and has a too small battery for the NTA tender, but your picture above looks to be a different model, so this most be working on a longer model.

dowlingm wrote: »

Evaluation was on obvious items like reliability, warranty, spare part availability, and energy efficiency but also completeness of training, bus driver ease of use, battery yield over different temperatures, quality assessment of the build factories, issues affecting bus lifespan etc etc. The buses were benchmarked against the current main hybrid diesel bus supplier, Novabus.
https://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_reports_and_information/Commission_meetings/2021/April_14/Reports/6_TTCs_Green_Bus_Program_Preliminary_Results_of_TTCs_Head_to.pdf

Very interesting read thanks. For me this is the main take away fro the report:

The lessons learned to date found no ‘show stoppers’ to the TTC’s progress toward full-fleet electrification.

While there were issues, non of them were show stoppers and they see no reason not continue switching their entire fleet to EV buses.

Given this trial was done in the harsh climate of Toronto, with lots of snow and ice, I think it bodes extremely well for EV buses in general and their use in the much more mild Irish climate.

One important difference I'd point out, BYD seem to be using buses they build in China themselves and they had issues due to lack of local maintenance services, parts, etc.

I think it is important to stress that the way they operate in Europe is very different. It really is a joint venture between ADL and BYD, if anything it is more ADL buses then BYD. Here the buses are actually made by ADL in their UK plants.

This is a very different business model then in the Americas. I don't think ADL-BYD would have any issues here delivering parts, maintenance expertise and even the upfront build quality. I think that would help avoid many of the issues they had in Canada.

I think it is the result of this experience, why BYD has wisely decided to partner with ADL in Europe, rather then go it alone. It brings in local expertise and maintenance network and I expect help avoid most of those issues.

I'd love to see a similar report into the ADL-BYD buses in London, I think that would prove more inline with what we might experience here.

BTW I find it very interesting that the issues faced for three manufacturers were mostly interior and exterior body build quality issues. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were little or no issues with chargers, battery or drive trains.

That says to me that a combination of ADL body and build quality with BYD batteries could be a very reliable bus.

dowlingm wrote: »

I mentioned above BYD’s AC charger - the report to indicate that it is actually better tech but they are now offering a DC option (same as the EU type I am assuming) as it is clearly a problem for customers like TTC who do not want to get locked into a single manufacturer.

The report says that AC is cheaper and easier to install, which it is, but I wouldn't say "better" necessarily. The downside of AC is it is much slower charging then DC. While that maybe ok for overnight charging, DC fast charging would be very useful for buses that come in during the day and get a quick topup charge if needed before going back out.

BYD's AC charging only goes up to 80kW, while depending on charger, CCS DC 350 kW is possible today and 450kW in future. I believe the faster charging speed of DC is well worth it, future proofed and give better fleet flexibility and usage. So even if more expensive, worth it.

BTW They use CCS Combo 1 (CCS1) in the US, while we use CCS Combo 2 (CCS2) in Europe. They are both DC fast charging and use the same protocols and largely the same, but slightly different shaped plug! :rolleyes:

dowlingm wrote: »

Mentions of “hydro” in these reports don’t mean hydroelectricity; in Canada “hydro” is shorthand for electricity the way some in Ireland just say “the ESB”

You are right, but interestingly the reason for the name is that Canada gets most of it's electricity from Hydoelectric (dams), followed by Nuclear. They have relatively little coal/gas, I think over 80% is hydro/nuke and as a result they have one of the cleanest power grids in the world. This is important as it means electric buses are as a result very clean too.

dowlingm wrote: »

bk - fair comment on the chargers - I was fixating more on the number of faults without reflecting that because only 10 BYDs were assessed, and over a shorter time frame, the number of cycles would have been fewer.

Yep, even then the DC chargers seemed to have excellent uptime, 99% uptime is pretty great:

The ABB DC charging system currently has a 99% availability rate and majority of defects have been easily resolved with a remote reset of the charger. Minor hardware failures of various converters and power modules have been quickly repaired by the charger manufacturer under warranty.

Sounds pretty good. The thing to keep in mind, it isn't really the plug that makes a difference, it is more about the design and reliability of a particular model of charger.

What we have seen with chargers used by the ESB, was that the first gen of chargers had lots of issues and often weren't working. But they have now started replacing them with a new model and they seem to be working really well, with great reliability. Similar with newer chargers used by Tesla/Ionity/etc.

So hopefully the NTA will choose a reliable model.

dowlingm wrote: »

The Commission is also proposing in a separate report to engage the local electricity distributor (Toronto Hydro) and the main producer (Ontario Power Generation - Niagara Falls plus nukes) in a tripartite agreement to design and build the necessary power distribution and charging infrastructure (fleet is about 2000 buses) including power storage to provide more power at cheap overnight rates.

Definitely, the NTA/DB/ESB will need to do something similar here. A large number of DC fast chargers in depots is going to put a large amount of strain on the local distribution network around depots. Upgrades in the area might be needed.

An interesting idea would be to put solar panels on the roof of depot buildings and use them to fill onsite batteries, which could then be used to charge the buses overnight, help take the strain off the local network.

Obviously they'd need to work out if that would be cost effective, etc.

GT89 wrote: »

Pictures I saw were on the 407 route

The pictures I've seen appear to be the 409

BTW I'm wondering if any of the drivers on here have had a chance to drive one yet? How are they from the drivers point of view? Acceleration, etc.?

From the video posted they seem nippy, but hard to tell from a video.