Solar-powered Buses Earmarked For Harare Metropolitan
A Chinese company, Nanchang Engineering, has offered Harare City Council a deal to supply 600 solar-powered buses.
The buses will be plying routes within Greater Harare Metropolitan. The project will include a central business district (CBD) shuttle service and the Harare Urban Route will service all suburban routes.
Recent minutes of the Environmental Management Committee indicate that the Harare to Norton route will be serviced by 35 buses, while Chitungwiza will have 45 buses and Ruwa 20. Part of the minutes read:
Operations would be managed from four established depots, two in Harare, one in Chitungwiza and one in Norton.
Depots would be firstly fitted with maintenance and recharging facilities and would be large enough to cater for some 200 buses each.
The project would have 12 battery swapping stations and they would act as charging centres.
The bus types would be a new energy concept and Harare would be the first city to implement it in Africa. Transport services would run 19 hours every day from 4 am to 11 pm.