Milan to order 15 further supercapacitor trolleybuses
Picture source: Trolleymotion
For over a year now, in Milan 30 modern hybrid-trolleybuses from the manufacturer Van Hool with electrical equipment of Vossloh Kiepe are in use. Due to the positive experience, the transport company ATM Milan (Azienda Trasporti Milanesi) is now considering the option of purchasing another 15 vehicles. This reinforcement confirms the city’s commitment to environmentally friendly, emission-free public transport.
The combination of hybrid and trolleybus technology achieved clear energy savings. This has now been determined in a comparison test in which the energy consumption of the vehicles was measured. For this, the energy storage has been disabled in some buses, which facilitated accurate comparisons of vehicles with activated energy storage. Compared to the control group, vehicles with activated energy devices reduced their energy consumption at medium of around 20 percent.
This significantly improved energy balance is based on the following technical concept: the vehicles are equipped with high-performance capacitors, so called super caps, used as an on-board energy storage. The super caps effectively store the kinetic energy generated during braking. Afterwards, this stored energy can be re-released for accelerating, for heating, air conditioning or for catenary-free rides.
This saves energy no matter whether the buses operate as overhead catenary or in the hybrid mode. But even outside of the overhead line network, the buses approach zero emissions. The opportunity to drive some distance without overhead catenary using the on-board stored electric energy increases the acceptance of the vehicles in passengers and residents.
The TROLLEY partner city of Parma is also testing super caps on selected vehicles and is evaluating their energy balance. ATM Milan already presented the Milan approach in the framework of the first TROLLEY City-Industry-Summit in October 2010 in Parma, in order to increase the exchange and transfer of latest innovations re on-board energy storage in Central Europe.
Source: Trolleymotion
