Hamburger Hochbahn, the largest local transport provider in the German city of Hamburg, has charged Siemens with installing charging infrastructure at one of the largest electric bus depots in Europe.
Siemens announced they would equip the Alsterdorf bus depot with a total of 96 charging points as well as medium and low-voltage technology. Operations will start in summer of 2021.
With a total of 240 parking spaces, it is one of the largest and most modern bus depots for electric buses in Europe. It is also the first in Germany designed solely for emission-free buses, Hamburger Hochbahn claims. The company has started to purchase only zero-emission buses this year. By the end of the decade, the operator wants to have converted its entire fleet of around 1,000 buses to emission-free vehicles, which all need to charge.
“In equipping the bus depots with the necessary charging infrastructure, it is important for us to have a single-source partner who can deliver future-proof charging infrastructure along with all the necessary electrical components and services. We found such a partner in Siemens and are looking forward to executing this exciting project,” said Bastian Schmidt, Project Lead for Infrastructure Electromobility at Hamburger Hochbahn AG.
The order includes 48 Sicharge UC 200 charging stations with CCS plugs, medium and low-voltage technology, as well as a five-year service contract. Each charging station has a charging capacity of 150 kilowatts. All the charging technology is housed in a technology control centre on the roof of each carport. The charging cable is routed along the top directly to the charging stations to leave enough space for parking.
“Saving space when integrating charging technology is important, especially in city infrastructure,” said Jean-Christoph Heyne, Head of Future Grids at Siemens Smart Infrastructure, when explaining the roof construction.
The Alsterdorf bus depot covers 45,000 square meters, and Hamburger Hochbahn opened it in April 2019. It is the newest of a total of seven locations of Hochbahn which are all supplied with renewable energy.
