South Australia’s first major electric bus charging hub has powered up, with 60 charging stations now installed and switched on at Adelaide Metro’s Morphettville bus depot.
The $9 million depot upgrade will make Morphettville the home and main charging hub for Adelaide Metro’s battery electric bus fleet.
The state government says the project is a major step in the transition toward net-zero emissions.
Fifty-five of the government’s order of 60 electric buses are already in service across the Adelaide Metro network, with the final five expected to come online this month.
The 60-bus electric fleet is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 4,500 tonnes each year compared with the ageing diesel and gas buses it replaces. The government says it’s equivalent to the emissions of more than 1,500 homes.
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Transport is the largest individual source of emissions in South Australia, while public transport vehicles are a major contributor to emissions generated by the South Australian government.
The electric buses have been supplied by Scania, with bodies manufactured by Volgren Australia. Each bus seats 41 passengers and can travel more than 300 kilometres on a single charge.
The buses have also been fitted with protective driver security screens. Those screens are being installed across all 940 buses in the state government’s fleet under a $7.5 million program.
More than 75 per cent of the fleet has already been fitted with the screens, with the rollout expected to be complete by the end of the year.
The government has set an emissions-reduction target of at least 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.
Business cases have been developed to transition the bus and train fleets to zero tailpipe emissions. These will be presented to Infrastructure Australia for funding consideration.
Design work is also progressing on the charging infrastructure at Mile End bus depot, with plans to upgrade the site in the coming years to provide similar charging capability for future electric buses.
The Morphettville upgrade follows the arrival of six new electric buses in the Adelaide Hills, fully electrifying Mount Barker’s Keoride on-demand bus fleet and increasing local passenger capacity.
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