Electric bus deployment in the Arctic Circle enters its second winter
The world’s northernmost public transport service has also been operating electric buses for a year now. Tide Buss operates nine Volvo 7900 Electric buses in Hammerfest, Norway (70 degrees north in the Arctic Circle). The vehicles are now entering their second winter.
“All in all, we’ve been very happy with Volvo’s electric buses. We’ve only had one stoppage where the bus ran out of power, but that was due to a failure in our own routines,” says Trond Inge Hausmann, Operations Manager at Tide Buss, the city’s public transport operator. “We’ve also received positive feedback from the local authority, Finnmark. We’re proud of that, but we want to do even better.”
Finnmark is also responsible for the fact that the electric buses are on the road in Hammerfest at all. “When Finnmark invited tenders for bus services, it had a substantial weighting under environmental criteria that made it attractive and advantageous to offer electric buses, so that’s what we did,” says Jan-Helge Sandvåg, Technical Director at Tide Buss. Tide Buss won the tender and began the procurement process and calculation of the lowest possible total cost of ownership – and chose Volvo Bus as the supplier.
The buses run from the city centre to the surrounding villages. Due to the length of the routes, six of the nine vehicles are equipped with the largest possible batteries offered by Volvo. Tide Buss has also adapted the exact route of some of the routes depending on the battery capacity. Energy is an important factor, which is why diesel heating is still installed. “The bus loses heat very quickly when the doors are constantly opened, and the auxiliary heater kicks in at a defined temperature. This helps to ensure that we have enough battery capacity during periods of cold and wind,” says Jan-Helge Sandvåg.
According to Trond Inge Hausmann from Tide Buss, some time has been spent gaining experience with consumption, charging and performance. “All in all, last winter showed that electric operation is entirely possible, even at 70 degrees north. We made it through extreme weather, and managed to keep things running smoothly. So, we’re very pleased with that.”
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