Chile minds its electromobility gap

The first electric buses in Chile to operate outside Santiago will begin running later this year, as authorities attempt to bridge the electromobility gap between the capital and other cities.

In the northern city of Antofagasta, 40 electric buses will start operating this year, while fleet tenders for other cities are either underway or being drafted, said Alan Sepúlveda, head of the transport ministry’s (MTT) regional public transport division.  

“We would love for the leap needed to shorten [the Santiago-Regional gap] to be much shorter, but we also understand that shortening this gap isn’t only about changing bus engines, but there must be a structural change as well when it comes to the model to guarantee service quality,” Sepúlveda told an electromobility webinar. 

He added that international and local operators are interested in regional projects that will be tendered, and these not only include bus suppliers but also energy operators that provide infrastructure for charging stations and financial institutions interested in participating through partnerships.

The process has not been without hiccups. A fleet contract that was supposed to bring in 36 electric buses to the city of Valparaíso is being rescinded at the contractor’s (Valparaiso Transport Electric) request. Sepúlveda said that the contractor considered that the macroeconomic conditions had changed dramatically since the contract was awarded in late 2021, making it unable to carry out its commitments.

Instead of restarting the process, however, MTT opted to implement an incentives program to push existing bus operators in the city to adopt electric vehicles. As a result, 44 electric buses are expected to begin operating in Valparaíso by mid-2024.

The overall goal is to have 300 electric buses operating outside Santiago by the end of President Gabriel Boric's administration in March 2026, Sepúlveda said.

The official made these comments during a webinar discussing investment opportunities for electromobility in Chile held by news outlet Portal Movilidad.

OTHER CHALLENGES 

The same webinar was told that challenges remain despite Chile’s best efforts in electromobility – which has given Santiago one of the largest electric bus fleets of any city outside China.

Nicolás Rodríguez, general manager of Metropol group, said that Santiago’s RED bus system has yet to see passenger traffic return to pre-pandemic levels. Other problems include high fare evasion in the system and arson attacks against public transport vehicles. 

Diego Fuentes, planning and development manager at Metbus, pointed to energy storage as a potential focus for the sector. “Non-conventional renewables are generating a lot of energy throughout the day and it is changing electric tariffs a bit. Then the issue is how to take advantage of that generation the country has to feed all those electric vehicles,” he said. 

As of June, Chile has an installed generation capacity of 34,548MW, of which 42.8% correspond to non-conventional renewables, according to renewable energy and storage association Acera.