In a bid to bring make the capital’s public transport more sustainable and efficient

In a bid to bring make the capital’s public transport more sustainable and efficient, there are plans for some London buses to be used for more than just transporting people around the city.

The idea is being trialled in North London at the Northumberland Park bus garage in Tottenham where around 100 electric buses are stored.

These electric buses have to be charged overnight, but some of them also stay in the garage during the day when they aren’t transporting busy Londoners around.

This is when the buses could pump their unused electricity back into the grid to power some of London.
It will see around 1MW of energy returned into the grid.

Better than sitting in the garage doing nothing all day.

This idea isn’t totally novel. It’s also being trialled with electric cars, which often stay parked up all day, again doing nothing.

Batteries are charged when demand is low, i.e. overnight, then energy is fed back into the grid when demand is high. It all helps to manage the ups and downs of the network and make it as efficient as possible.