Differdange is an industrial city in Luxembourg with narrow streets, many one-way, and noise is more critical than in a capital city with wide boulevards. However, busses run only for 30 minutes one way. Therefore, an electric solution was inevitable, but the city required short and long planning with technical support.
Considering the specific needs, Heliox provided a flexible and reliable solution to this project. The busses in Differdange run their service with opportunity charging. In total, Heliox delivered 3 Heliox Fast Charge Systems compliant with the OppCharge solutions. OppCharge is an open standard interface between electric busses and chargers and the system includes automatic contacting by a pantograph, wireless communication, contacting plates and infrastructure equipment that automatically contacts vehicles with a pantograph. Busses could, every half an hour during the day, fast charge at 300kW for 3-6 minutes. As noise was an important issue to tackle, Heliox's liquid-cooled charging systems were delivered, providing substantial noise reduction in the urban areas.
In the depot, a unique OppCharge Mast was installed that helps reduce the footprint of the charging mast. For this, a special construction was designed to mount the arm of the mast to the building steel beams. The charging system could also charge the previously delivered plug-in hybrid busses. Overnight charging at the depot took 3-4 hours to fully charge a bus.
With the fast-charging equipment from Heliox, Differdange is now Europe's first city that solely deploys e-busses.
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