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    Seattle’s King County Metro to test compatibility of ChargePilot for Electric bus fleet

    April 1, 2022
    The collaboration also will test ChargePilot’s compatibility with high-power plug-in and overhead chargers from ABB, Siemens and Heliox. The system is being tested to determine whether it can support its electrification plans to achieve net-zero emission
    Image credit King County Metro
    King County Metro 62471e1b66426

    Public transit agency King County Metro has collaborated with EV charging firm The Mobility House to test the working and effectiveness of the latter’s energy and charge management solution ChargePilot.

    The collaboration also will test ChargePilot’s  compatibility with high-power plug-in and overhead chargers from ABB, Siemens and Heliox. The system is being tested to determine whether it can support its electrification plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2035.

    “In collaboration with The Mobility House, we will be able to experiment with and learn from a variety of hardware solutions that we believe will help us achieve our long-term electrification goals,” said Kevin Kibet, the manager of the project for King County Metro.

    King County Metro is the largest public transit agency in the Puget Sound region of northwest Washington state. Metro provides bus, paratransit, vanpool, and water taxi services, and operates Seattle Streetcar, Sound Transit Link light rail, and Sound Transit Express bus service.

    ChargePilot optimizes fleet charging schedules to obtain the lowest electricity cost and ensure the availability of each electric bus. The system is expected to save the Metro a minimum of $9,457.20 per month in operating expenses on average.

    The new chargers together have a nameplate capacity of 4.63 Megawatts. During testing, the firm will use 2.5 MW of transformer capacity. The cost to upgrade the transformer would have been $900,000 to $1 million. However, the ChargePilot’s local controller will manage load time, keep power usage less than the transformer’s limitation and save time and money. 

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.