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Ventura Bus Zero Emissions Bus (ZEB) Trial

Project Partners: Ventura, RMIT University, C4NET

Ventura successfully tendered with the Head, Transport for Victoria (HTfV) for the Victorian Department of Transport (DoT) Zero Emissions Bus Trial (Trial) program to occur at its Ivanhoe Depot.

The ZEB business will arrive in two stages, the first 12 buses are anticipated to arrive in January 2023 with the second tranche of 14 buses anticipated to arrive in January 2024.

To support the trial, Ventura has engaged C4NET and RMIT who have co-invested and will conduct a comprehensive structured research program to ensure the trial meaningfully informs opportunities and issues relating to:

  • Energy and electricity network constraints and environmental outcomes
  • Electricity grid capacity and resilience
  • Other challenges and opportunities identified in Victoria’s Zero Emissions Roadmap
  • RMIT will use the trial data to inform future needs when ZEB are adopted universally

The research elements led by RMIT will address:

  1. Impact on the grid of charging behaviour (peak and minimum demand impact, network augmentation, avoided infrastructure cost and local solar hosting impacts).
  2. An assessment of need/viability/feasibility for backup generation (or reserve battery) to provide a degree of certainty.
  3. Alternate means to optimise asset utilisation including, sharing of charging infrastructure with fleets on complementary charging schedules (eg council trucks).
  4. Assessment of vehicle to grid (“V2G”) ability to potentially participate in demand management schemes to support the grid.
  5. Value stacking for electrified fleet energy management via V2G.
  6. Transactive coordination of charging schedule option modelling. 
  7. Alternate charging options – eg. potential value of decentralised charging regimes such as alternate bases or top-up charging while at pause points (eg end of line etc).
  8. An assessment of installation of fast charging stations in select stops. 
  9. An assessment of potential tariff reforms and their impact on the charging cost.
  10. Scaling challenges – impact and key considerations to evaluate converting all Ventura sites, converting all bus depots across the state, and grid infrastructure, operating costs (vehicle, asset utilisation, electricity costs, carbon abatement etc).
  11. Self-generation feasibility – pros/cons of installing on-site/near-site generation.
  12. Techno-economic analysis of ZEBs in transport. 
  13. Development of multi-variant economic models to project and optimise fleet charge schedules, and inform the trade-offs between operational scheduling needs, electricity cost, battery life, peak management, carbon abatement, asset utilisation (charge stations, fleet), and network support programs.

Categories: Major Projects

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