A year after start of construction, Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe (LVB) officially inaugurated the new bus port with charging facilities for e-buses on 28 June 2022. This means that the new LVB centre for electromobility in the Lindenau bus station is completed for the time being. The shell of the bus port itself was built within just 14 weeks. The bus port is built as a steel structure with a standing seam sheet metal roof – in preparation for the later installation of a photovoltaic system.
Siemens delivered systems for charging the 21 electric buses along the routes as well as in the depot. Four terminal stations have been equipped with a total of five Sicharge UC 600 fast-charging units with an effective power of 450 kilowatts (kW) for opportunity charging. The medium-voltage connection, the transformer as well as the low-voltage power distribution have been integrated into the charging stations to facilitate the hook-up to the local power grid. This compact design of the charging stations allows for space-saving installation. At the depot, buses are charged primarily overnight or during other operational breaks using 21 Sicharge UC 100 charging units with charging power of up to 100 kW. In both systems the connection is realized via contact hoods. This means: Like a streetcar, the buses are equipped with a pantograph that is moved bottom-up for charging. The vehicle charges automatically via the contact rails mounted in the hood.
“With the bus port, LVB has reached another milestone in the introduction of e-bus technology. We will continue along this modernisation path to support the city of Leipzig in achieving its climate protection goals,” says Ronald Juhrs, Managing Director of Technology and Operations at Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe.
More service and availability
The bus port contains ten covered lanes and has space for up to 50 e-bus charging bays. The buses are charged overnight by means of pantographs on the bus roof at the charging bonnets in the bus port. On the route, the vehicles are charged in between.
“In the bus port itself, three medium-voltage transformers with 800 KVA connected load each and the latest technology are installed. This allows us to guarantee safe and reliable operation,” says Torsten Schmidt, LVB project manager. In addition, the connections for WLAN, video surveillance and tracking were modernised in the parking area and an intelligent lighting system with LED bulbs was installed.
The costs amount to aprroximately 11 million euros which are financed with funds from the federal government within the framework of the directive to promote the acquisition of electric buses in local public transport, as well as from budget funds from the Free State of Saxony.
Next stop: bus line 60
Meanwhile, LVB is preparing the next milestone: Leipzig’s first articulated electric buses will serve bus line 60. Charging stations are to be installed at the terminals along the route before the end of this year.
The e-bus fleet
LVB currently has 185 buses in its fleet. 21 of them are electric buses of the type VDL Citea SLF120e, 12m vehicle length. NMC battery with 216 kWh energy content. The vehicles are equipped with air conditioning and a turn-off assistant. The electric buses are used on routes 74/76 and 89. The energy consumption is 1.05 kWh/km, the diesel equivalent is about 11l/100 km. Recharging at the terminals and in the depot is done by means of roof pantographs and charging powers of up to 320 kW.
By the end of the year 2022, 17 electric articulated buses of the type VDL Citea SLFA180e will be delivered, the first of which are scheduled to arrive as early as this summer. They will be used on routes 60 and 72/73, and the charging infrastructure is currently being set up. The 18 m long vehicles have a 420 kWh LFP battery and are otherwise largely identical in construction.
The procurement of a further 28 articulated electric buses and the associated charging infrastructure is to be put out to tender by 2025. The prerequisite for this is a corresponding funding package. In 2038, the entire public transport system in Leipzig is to be climate-neutral.
