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So the major manufacturers have come up with various ways of removing the wires (issue 98, December 2012). Induction loops buried in the road is the most discrete – there is nothing to see at all, but a flush-mounted third rail and overhead charging stations at tram stops with no wires in between have all been tried and adopted for a few installations.
Now, another milestone in the development of these wire-less systems has taken place. On 1 October 2015, Bombardier successfully completed a 41.6 km catenary-free test run with a tram powered entirely by its Primove battery in combination with a Mitrac propulsion system. The test run was conducted in the German city of Mannheim on the network of Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr GmbH (RNV), the transport operator for the region.
The innovative Primove battery system builds upon Bombardier’s many years of experience with energy storage systems. The system combines high power capacity and exceptional battery life with good reliability and has been designed to maximise performance using the latest developments in nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) Li-Ion cells.
An advanced thermal conditioning unit maintains the battery’s ideal temperature and enables rapid charging and full braking energy recovery while extending life up to ten years.
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Buses too
Primove doesn’t just power trams. Since June 2015, city centre bus line 63 in Mannheim, Germany, has been operated by two fully electric buses, charged and powered by Primove technology. This has proved the system’s suitability for regular revenue service, even on demanding bus routes, giving passengers a quiet and emission-free ride.
Mannheim’s new e-bus line is the result of cooperation between regional transport operator RNV, Bombardier Transportation, the City of Mannheim, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Swiss bus manufacturer Hess AG. The 12-metre vehicles are the first of their kind to be equipped with the complete Primove package, which includes wireless charging technology, long-life battery system and a fully integrated propulsion system.
Electrifying the bus route presented the team with several challenges. Not only does the nine-kilometre line run through the heart of the city, but buses typically only rest at each stop for a very limited time. To meet this challenge, a series of four fast, high-power charging stations were installed at strategic locations along the line, one at each end stop and one at the bus depot.
With this arrangement, the system only needs to charge for about thirty seconds at each of the four charging stops and then for approximately five minutes at the end stops. This is enough to provide a single e-bus with sufficient energy to serve the entire route and eliminates the need for any additional charging or time-consuming battery exchanges. Mannheim’s two e-buses will save around 180 tonnes of CO2 per year, equal to the emissions of 74 private cars.
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