SCOTTISH COLUMN
£7.4million kick-starts fleet electrification
Five operators have secured £7.4million of government funding to purchase 41 electric buses in the first round of the Scottish Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme (SULEBS), with three of them committing to buy 35 Alexander Dennis vehicles built at Falkirk.
First Glasgow, Xplore Dundee and McGill’s Bus Service submitted successful bids for schemes requiring the 35 Alexander Dennis buses, 22 of them Enviro200EV single-deckers (with BYD chassis) due in service with First Glasgow by next autumn in time for the delayed COP26 United Nations climate change conference that the city is hosting.
These join two similar vehicles delivered at the beginning of this year.
First Glasgow’s share of the fund is over £4million, to which it is adding over £5million of its own investment, while Scottish Power Energy Networks is providing over £300,000 from its Green Economy Fund towards the charging infrastructure required at First’s Caledonia depot.
