ATB and Trøndelag County Council will test electric roads in Trondheim

In the next few years, the public transport company AtB and the Trondelaag County Municipality will test electric roads in Trondheim.

systems use for Dynamic inductive charging Buried in the ground, electric buses will be able to charge while driving.

This will be the first time the technology has been tested in Norway, and internationally there are only a few such methods.

The environmental package has allocated NOK 16 million, while technology company Enova is supporting the project with NOK 6.4 million.

The nearest test track is in Gotland, Sweden. The project in Trondheim represents innovation on an international level, and therefore there is great interest in experiences from the project, Enova wrote in a press release.

Road traffic is responsible for 18 percent of Norway’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we develop technology that contributes to reducing emissions on our roads, says Enova’s Director of Marketing, Marie Tranaas Skjærvik.

It must be tested on winter driving

The pilot project will be carried out in an area at Sandmoen bus station south of Trondheim.

Two test buses will run in the region throughout the winter. One of the important things that will now be tested is how electric methods will work with remote salting, tilling and bagging.

– All operations that make the road bumpy and full of potholes. How would this work if you were to put magnets, wires, and many more things that aren’t already in the way, says Pål Revheim.

He is a Senior Consultant in Technology and Business Development at AtB.

Today, 41 percent of all bus boarding in Trondheim is done on electric metro buses.

We believe that the future is electric and zero emissions. We think it’s probably the most reasonable way. Then we have some challenges. Especially the big buses and buses that go far. Revheim asks how can we get enough power for them, so that we can drive as far as we do today.

If the pilot project is successful, the technology could potentially be used on the city’s metro lines.

– If we succeed in the pilot project, metro buses will not need large battery packs. We avoid high charging capacity in charging stations and we will have lower operating costs.

can be expanded

If the project ends up being a large-scale development in Trondheim, it will be so from 2029.

Revheim estimates they will then need between two and three kilometers of electric roads.

– We have to come up with a plan for how we can build this here in a way that is as sensible as possible, that doesn’t hinder the traffic flow too much and where we can better stick to development projects and development projects that are already underway, he says.

The slower the bus speed, the more electricity it will use. Thus, it would be appropriate to build electric roads on sections where the speed limit is low and where many vehicles travel on the same section.

Thus, the center of Trondheim is an ideal area for such a route, but it is uncertain whether it would be possible to build there exactly.

– We did not rule it out, but we believe that the construction in Midtbein will be complex, says Revheim.