An electric bus charging facility at Taipei Metro’s Beitou Depot officially opened yesterday with 22 charging bays to serve the city’s 886 electric buses.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) told a ceremony to mark the opening of the facility that the city aims to fully electrify its bus fleet by 2030.
The number of electric buses has grown from about 650 last year to 886 this year and is expected to surpass 1,000 by the end of the year, Chiang said.
Photo: Tung Kuan-yi, Taipei Times
Setting up the charging station in a metro depot optimizes land and energy use, as the metro uses power mainly during the day, while electric buses charge at night, he said.
Chiang said that he shared Taipei’s practices in waste management and green transportation at the Mayors’ Summit in Paris, which marked the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement.
Taipei is to host the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems in 2029, at which the capital would showcase its advancements to the global community, he added.
The Taipei Department of Transportation said in a statement that the charging site would operate from midnight to 6am daily, allowing buses to recharge during off-peak hours.
Ho Cheng (賀政), chairman of Danan Bus Co, which built the facility, told the ceremony that as of Tuesday, the company had 21 electric buses running on Route 288 from Shilin District (士林) to Taipei City Hall.
The total investment in infrastructure was about NT$90 million (US$3.1 million), jointly funded by the company and the Taipei City Government, each contributing 50 percent, Danan Bus said.
Each electric bus takes about 3.5 hours to fully charge, the company said, adding that charging during off-peak hours cuts costs significantly, with off-peak electricity priced at NT$3 per kilowatt hour compared to NT$10 during the day.
It invested NT$400,000 in firefighting equipment to help ensure public safety at the station, Danan Bus said.
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