Hitachi Energy to Assist the French City of Clermont-Ferrand in Electrifying its Bus Network and Moving Toward Carbon Neutrality
Hitachi Energy is a world leader in technology that is working to create a sustainable energy future for everyone. It recently announced that it had won an order to provide its Grid-eMotion® Flash ultrafast charging system for the two busiest routes in Clermont-Ferrand, a city in central France.
Grid-eMotion Flash was the first choice of SMTC-AC, the institution that runs public transportation in the city. They need a fast, efficient, reliable, and safe charging system to get people out of their cars and onto emission-free public transportation.
Grid-eMotion Flash is part of the city's InspiRe programme, which aims to make urban transportation more sustainable and cut down on pollution, traffic, and noise in the metropolitan area.
It includes 40 new ebuses, bus-only lanes to cut down on travel time, timetables with very short gaps between buses, and no breaks in bus service because of discharged batteries.
So, SMTC-AC wants to make passengers happier and increase the number of passenger trips from 32 million today to 52 million in 2032, which is a big jump. When the new electric transportation system is built into a complex urban environment, it will cut CO2 emissions by about 5,000 tonnes a year.
Hitachi Energy's rapid charging solution, Grid-eMotion Flash, enables cities to reduce the environmental pollution of their transportation systems without impacting passenger capacity or journey times. It flash-charges buses at chosen stops in seconds, with ultrafast top-up charging during short breaks at the route terminus and the depot.
Niklas Persson, Managing Director of Hitachi Energy's Grid Integration business, said, "We are thrilled to have won this prestigious order to help one of France's oldest cities switch from fossil fuel-powered buses to emission-free electric buses. We share the same vision and values as Clermont-Ferrand—that electric public transportation leads to a sustainable energy future and a better quality of life for the people who live and work in the city.”
Grid-eMotion Flash is a part of Nantes, France's electric transportation system, which earlier this year received the industry's top award for operational and technological excellence from UITP, the world's premier trade organisation for public transportation. The Nantes flash charging technology was also covered by the BBC in their Humanising Energy series on energy innovation.
HESS, a Swiss ebus manufacturer, awarded the order to Hitachi Energy. Previously, the two businesses worked together on ebus and flash charging solutions for Brisbane, Australia, Geneva, Switzerland, and Nantes, France. Grid-eMotion solutions are already in use or being developed in Australia, Canada, China, India, the Middle East, the United States, and several European countries.
Source: Hitachi Energy
