As originally published by the Queen's Gazette.
The Centre for Energy and Power Electronics Research (ePower) at Queen鈥檚 University is part of a new cluster of post-secondary institutions receiving funding from the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC) to pursue battery electric bus research. CUTRIC is contributing $2.6 million in funding to help achieve the federal government鈥檚 ambitious goal of electrifying 5,000 transit buses.
The funding, along with an additional $132,500 from federal MITACS industrial research program, will support innovative low-carbon and smart mobility research projects at Queen鈥檚 University, OCAD University, University of Windsor, and Ontario Tech University, which form CUTRIC鈥檚 National Academic Committee on Zero-Emissions Buses (NAC-ZEB).
This work will address the challenges faced by electric buses and help us realize the goal of making them a transit standard.
Suzan Eren, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Queen鈥檚 and a member of ePOWER, and her team are working to optimize the powertrain used in heavy-duty electric buses to pave the way for practical and efficient next-generation electric buses.
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Did you know that the university recently launched a new central website for Queen鈥檚 research? From in-depth features to the latest information on the university鈥檚 researchers, the site is a destination showcasing the impact of Queen鈥檚 research. Discover Research@Queen鈥檚.
鈥淭he key technology of this project is innovations in power electronics to revolutionize the design of a new powertrain architecture,鈥 Dr. Eren says. 鈥淭his work will address the challenges faced by electric buses and help us realize the goal of making them a transit standard.鈥
This announcement builds on approximately $16 million in federal funding already awarded to the City of Brampton, TransLink, York Region Transit, and Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution Ltd. through Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to help launch the Pan-Canadian Electric Bus Demonstration & Integration Trial: Phase I.