ABB facilitating greater standardisation as a part of the ASSURED consortium

Committed to writing the future for sustainable mobility, ABB has played a central role within the ASSURED consortium in developing a new report that will bring us another step forward in the standardisation of e-bus charging infrastructure.

The four-year project, funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Green Vehicles programme, started in October 2017 with the aim of developing and testing high-power charging solutions for full-size, urban, heavy-duty applications. The report outlines specifications for automatic charging of heavy vehicles based on existing draft standards.

Frank Muehlon, Managing Director for ABB's Global EV Charging Infrastructure Business commented: “At ABB we have a history of driving standardisation across the e-mobility market as one of the founders of both the CHAdeMO and CCS alliance charging standards for passenger vehicles. We are therefore proud to be collaborating with key industry stakeholders within the ASSURED consortium to help evolve charging standardisation for electric heavy vehicles. Innovative charging strategies outlined in the report will help drive down the total cost of ownership for electric fleet operators, helping increase adoption of eBuses and eTrucks and enabling a more sustainable future in which both noise and air pollution is significantly reduced.”

The next phase of the project includes the development of conformance and interoperability testing based on standards outlined in the report. Testing within a controlled IDIADA test house environment in Barcelona is then scheduled to commence in Quarter 4, 2019.

This will be followed by a demonstration of the interoperability of chargers and vehicles in real life situations in three European cities, Gothenburg, Barcelona and Osnabruck, throughout 2020-2021. Unique to the project, ABB will supply mobile versions of its Panto Down and Panto Up chargers, which can be installed in as little as four hours.

“ASSURED is working towards a brighter future for e-mobility, where cities and operators will be able to easily mix and match vehicles and chargers brands to upscale their fleets”, said Arno Kerkhof, Head of Bus Division and Bus Unit leader at Union Internationale des Transports Publics (UITP).

ABB's recently launched Panto Up charger has been designed to provide a flexible, efficient and fully automated charging solution for larger fleets of electric buses, where limited depot space has driven the decision to select buses with a roof mounted pantograph.

Panto Up complements ABB's market leading electric bus charging portfolio, which comprises connector charging solutions ranging from a 24kW DC Wallbox at 1000V and the 50kW Terra 54 HV at 1000V to 350kW chargers with liquid cooled cables. It also includes the well-established Panto Down, which is based on OppCharge, an open interface for DC electric bus charging.