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Auckland, as Mission Electric continues Auckland, as Mission Electric continues

Date: 12 September 2023

West Auckland has gone electric, as its first electric bus depot was officially launched today - along with 43 new electric buses now in service.

AT and Kinetic (NZ Bus) held an event this morning to celebrate the electrification of the New Lynn depot.

This Mission Electric milestone follows on from the Panmure depot electrification - which was the first fully electric bus depot for New Zealand, unveiled in January.

Today’s official launch also celebrates that these further 43 buses make Route 24 the latest fully zero-emission route for Auckland Transport (AT).

The NZ Bus depot has the latest technology to reduce burden on the grid and improve the environmental impact of Auckland’s electric bus fleet – all without putting Auckland’s energy supply at risk.

The new electric buses are charged up overnight, via their own individual direct current charger.

Auckland Transport (AT) now has 133 zero-emission buses in its fleet, making it the largest number of zero-emission buses for a New Zealand city.

AT’s Executive General Manager of Public Transport Services, Stacey van der Putten, says this is another significant step forward in implementing the Low Emission Bus Roadmap to decarbonise Auckland’s public transport.

“It aligns with the government’s 2035 mandate for the full decarbonisation of urban buses in New Zealand,” she says.

“It’s been exciting to witness the transition to electric buses recently and we know our customers are enjoying the cleaner, quieter travel. Auckland Transport is creating an efficient and sustainable transport network that helps Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland become a truly liveable city and region.”

See more about Auckland Transport’s Mission Electric here: Mission Electric (at.govt.nz)

Major milestones so far on the Mission Electric journey for Auckland:

  • Since the establishment of the first Roadmap, Auckland Transport has successfully contracted half of Waiheke’s bus fleet to electric from November 2020 - with the remainder of the fleet to be replaced by electric buses progressively, as the current diesel fleet reaches its end of life.
  • The previous milestone to have all new buses procured as zero-emission from 2025 has also been accelerated and came into effect on 1 July 2021.
  • There are now whole routes that are operated by fully electric fleets:  AirportLink from Manukau Bus Station via Puhinui Station to the Airport has been electric from January 2021, the CityLink service operating in the city centre has been electric since April 2021.
  • In November 2022, TāmakiLink transitioned to a fully electric fleet and 26 other electric buses were deployed to routes in the Eastern Bays area of Auckland, making routes 76, 774 and 775 fully electric.
  • The further 43 buses have just entered service, making Route 24 the latest fully zero-emission route.
  • As well as electric buses, Auckland Transport continues to trial the only hydrogen fuel cell bus in New Zealand.

 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

  • Auckland Transport undertakes a regular greenhouse gas emissions inventory to track its progress towards reducing its emissions footprint. The inventory undertaken for financial year 2021-2022 highlighted that the bus fleet is responsible for 79 per cent of the organisation’s emissions, emitting 75,530 tonnes of CO₂e.
  • AT, Vector and NZ Bus have adopted a smart-charging system which will be connected to Vector’s Distributed Energy Resource Management System.  This smart charging system manages e-bus charging during off-peak hours, typically overnight, to avoid increasing peak demand on the local electricity network.  Every 15 minutes, Vector sends the depot the network capacity available for charging buses for the next 24 hours. This enables the bus depot to optimise their bus charging schedule accordingly and reduces investment on the network. 
  • The system also futureproofs the depot for potential development of additional Bus to Grid (B2G) systems - to transfer surplus energy from bus batteries back to the network.