Enhancing public transport electrification: Basque country’s innovative collaboration

The company specialises in smart recharging services for electric vehicle fleets. This is done by connecting mainly to railway electrical infrastructure but also through other consumers who already have high power available and do not need it 24 hours a day.

MEDUSA operates between the railway operator and the manager of the electric vehicle fleet. It manages the recharging service, controlling energy and economic flows on an hourly basis, ensuring that the energy needs of both the railway electrical infrastructure and the electric vehicles are met.

The first project implemented by MEDUSA involved Bilbao’s metro and the local bus company Bilbobus. The railway power network of the metro is used to power the upcoming intelligent charging infrastructure at the Bilbobus garage in Ribera de ElorrietaI. This solution allows the use of an existing and high-powered infrastructure, such as that of Metro Bilbao, to provide a complementary service to another public transport, Bilbobus, during night hours when both services reduce their activity.

This solution minimises investments in new electrical connections and optimises the use of contracted power. The designed system makes it possible to recharge the bus fleet without affecting the rail service. Power to trains will always take preference over recharging to buses if there is a metro service at that time, reducing the recharging of buses at the time of passing trains. At night times where there is no metro service, the recharge of the bus fleet will be more intensive. This optimises the whole system.

To summarise, the main advantages of MEDUSA are the following:

1. Availability of high-power during bus charging hours, mainly between 00:00 and 08:00 am, and maximum flexibility in the remaining hours. The typology of the railway service means that they need to contract high power at night when the passenger service decreases.

2. Cheaper electricity price: the railway operator already pays the term of power in its contract, while at the same time providing high volume and therefore more competitive energy procurement.

3. Simpler administrative procedures: as no additional point of access and connection to the distribution network has to be requested, nor an increase in the currently contracted power.

4. Connection to a rail network also has the advantage of being able to progressively increase the power demanded by the charging facility as new bus units are incorporated, always within the maximum capacity that the rail infrastructure can offer.

This best practice is extracted from our publication ‘Sustainable Regions in Action‘. Discover more best practices here!