De Lijn procures up to 1,600 electric bus chargers for Belgium

The Belgian public transport company De Lijn has awarded a framework contract for up to 1,600 new depot charging points for electric buses over a period of eight years. The contract was awarded to two providers: ABB and SPIE-Ekoenergetyka.

This large order of electric bus chargers in Belgium is based on a joint venture between SPIE Belgium and the Polish charging infrastructure manufacturer Ekoenergetyka. De Lijn already ordered 252 charging stations from SPIE-Ekoenergetyka around a year ago.

With the framework agreement now presented, De Lijn plans to order around 320 to 490 charging points in the first phase, split between the two providers. If the maximum of 490 charging points is used up for the time being, this would correspond to an investment of 15.3 million euros, according to De Lijn.

The 1,600 charging points have been approved by De Lijn’s Supervisory Board but have not yet been firmly allocated to the depots and the two suppliers. The allocation of the charging points will depend on the progress of the infrastructure work at the depots, while both parties will compete with each other for subsequent partial allocations.

Guy Damen, Sales Manager E-mobility for Belux at ABB explained, “We have now gained a lot of additional experience in Western Europe, which we are happy to make available to De Lijn and its travellers.”

Since 2019, the public transport operator De Lijn has exclusively procured buses with low- or zero-emission drives, initially including buses with hybrid drives. In spring, the board of De Lijn launched a procurement procedure for up to 1,250 electric buses with lengths between 8.5 and 24 metres. This procedure runs parallel to a framework tender from last year for 350 12-metre electric buses. At the end of 2021, De Lijn ordered 60 electric buses from the latter package from Van Hool and VDL.

The region of Flanders has the declared goal of offering completely emission-free public transport by 2035. De Lijn says that it wants to make its public transport services emission-free by 2035.

prezly.com (in Dutch)