eBus
Inaugurated in December 2016, the UFSC Solar Powered Electric Bus started the regular transportation service between Trindade Campus and Sapiens Parque in March 2017. The bus – which is part of a productive displacement project with electric PV powered vehicles – is a working environment, with comfortable seats (carries only seated passengers), two meeting tables, 220V and USB jacks, air conditioning and UFSC wi-fi.
The electric vehicle carries out five trips a day (52 km per trip from Sapiens Parque to UFSC and back, around 5,000 km / month), providing regular and free services to the UFSC community, fully powered by the solar electricity generated in the roofs of the Solar Energy Research and Training Center of UFSC (www.fotovoltaica.ufsc.br), in Sapiens Parque, in the north of the island of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis.
In the 30-minute trip between the UFSC Central Campus and Sapiens Parque, users have a work environment as if they were in a UFSC room. In the coming days, the bus will undergo the first overhaul of all mechanical and electrical systems, when an accurate diagnosis will be made of the operation of the vehicle. At the same time, an app is being developed that will allow the academic community of UFSC to reserve a seat on the bus through their cell phone, in the same way as they check in for a commercial flight.
The project, coordinated by Prof. Ricardo Rüther from UFSC, had a loan of one million Brazilian reais (R $ 1 million) from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI, actual MCTIC), and has the partnership of WEG, Marcopolo, Mercedes and Eletra. In November 2017, the electric bus of UFSC completed 40,000 km, totaling the equivalent of around the world fed entirely by solar energy!