Charging requirements for Melbourne’s electric bus fleet

This project has been designed to analyse the public transport bus network of metropolitan Melbourne, and build a spatio-temporal charging map of electric buses (EB) under different charging mechanisms, e.g. depot-based charging, and a combination of depot-based and en-route charging.

The transport sector is responsible for approximately one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions. Electrification is the only viable solution to decarbonise the transport sector and reduce its emissions.

The Victorian Government has a strategy to deploy zero-emission fleet in the public transport (PT) system. Mass electrification of the PT fleet will impact the energy landscape; thus, effective planning for meeting mobility requirements while electricity constraints are met is required.

Effective planning of PT fleet electrification requires accurate estimation of the charging demand considering different EB penetration levels and various charging strategies, e.g. depot-based or en-route charging in transit stops.

This project aims to develop a model presenting the spatio-temporal patterns of charging demand under the different operating conditions of the EB. This model allows realistic electrification planning such that transport and energy sectors constraints are both considered.

Participants

• Centre for New Energy Technologies
• RMIT University

Project background

Electrifying public transport buses is an effective way to decarbonise the transport related to public transport. Australia’s states and territories have set targets for their public transport electrification. In Victoria, for example, all new public transport buses must be zero emission by 2025.

The NSW government has set a more aggressive target to make all buses zero emission by 2030. Electric buses have large batteries and fully charging the battery of an EB can be equal to the average daily consumption of approximately 50 houses.

Depending on the routes, some EBs are required to be charged more than once daily. Charging the EB fleets will be a big load to the grid, and if not properly managed, it can lead to disruptions in the energy market. The first step is planning for EB fleet charging is to fully understand the scale of the charging requirements.

Project objectives

The project objectives are to:

• build a spatio-temporal charging map of electric buses for the metropolitan Melbourne public transport network
• investigate daytime charging locations (e.g. transit bus stops).

UPDATE: 27 August 2024

A webinar outlining progress on this project was held, led by RMIT University research lead Dr Ali Moradi Amani. A copy of his slide deck for the webinar is available, downloadable from: Spatio-temporal analysis of charging requirements for Victoria’s Electric Bus Fleet.

Also discussed was a primary version of a machine-learning-based tool that his team has recently developed to produce an estimate of the energy consumption of electric buses.The tool calculates the energy consumption of each route based on the recorded data from the Victorian Zero-emission trial. The precision of the tool will be improved once richer datasets are achieved. For a look at the tool, visit E-bus Energy Estimator. The team welcomes your feedback and suggestions on how this tool can become more practical for bus planners. Email your feedback to: Dr Ali Moradi Amani.