How a Brovary company turns trolleybuses into power banks. Reportage

Innovative company

«We are a manufacturer of the drive, electronic and electrical equipment that makes the trolleybus what it is. I believe that we are exclusive in Ukraine, because none of the trolleybus manufacturers have their own trolleybus drive, battery for autonomous operation or other developments that we are engaged in,» says Mykola Kugut during the conversation.

At the same time, he notes that «Polytechnoservice» is not engaged in the production of bodies. The company works with the bodies of existing manufacturers, filling it with its own developments. «This is a drive, battery for autonomous operation, high-voltage and low-voltage harnesses.

Now, a multiplex system is being tested, which collects all signals on the trolleybus and sends it to the driver’s workplace,» the interlocutor clarifies. Today, the system is produced for their trolleybus, and in the future they plan to offer it to other manufacturers as part of the equipment.

Also, the company is engaged in conversion of trolleybuses of other manufacturers with a PTS drive (that is, produced by the company) by installing batteries for autonomous operation. For example, 28 cars were converted in this way in the city of Kremenchuk.

When buying trolleybuses, a similar element is already installed, it is manufactured by one of the well-known French companies in the trolleybus niche. «But we decided that we can also create such a system. In addition, it affects the percentage of components in the composition of the Ukrainian-made trolleybus, because there is a separate law on localization. Today, we can talk about 37% — 40% of our trolleybus production,» adds Mykola Kugut.

Projects with cities

At one time, «Politehnoservice» was founded as a supplier of equipment from the Czech Republic for «Bohdan» trolleybuses. This happened at the time of Ukraine’s hosting of Euro-2012. One of its founders, a Czech by origin, created the company to provide warranty and post-warranty service for products. Over time, the warranty ran out, so it was decided to make something special.

Trolleybuses of the brewery company now travel in Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv. The sale of transport to cities takes place through tenders.

He says that «Polytechnoservice» does not compete with other companies on the market, but offers them cooperation. For example, together with Etalon, the company recently won a tender in Khmelnytskyi for the supply of trolleybuses.

In 2022, Polytechnic Service won 2 tenders for 5 trolleybuses in Chernivtsi. The company made deliveries to Vinnytsia in the form of machine sets, where the local company independently assembled trolleybuses. Trolleybuses are now being shipped to Mykolaiv: 15 of them are already running in the southern city, and another 16 will be delivered by May 2025. The purchase was financed by the Danish government, which allocated EUR 3.9 million in the form of a grant.

Autonomous move

The company currently employs 90-100 specialists, says its director. Half of them are engineers, technologists, designers and programmers.

Since the end of 2020, the company has created a special laboratory for testing electric vehicles. For example, when the city buys used trams or trolleybuses from Europe. According to the law, in order to put a vehicle on the line, it needs to be tested or certified. The company’s laboratory conducts a similar examination.

How is the system of autonomous movement arranged, which is more relevant than ever during the war? While the trolleybus moves under the catenary, it charges the battery. It can also be charged from a regular 380 V mains socket. When the mains runs out on the route, the trolleybus automatically recharges the current receivers and continues moving. The proportions of such movement are 60% by 40%, where the first value is the length of the route under the contact network, the second is without it. Under such conditions, the battery has time to charge. «We can adjust this indicator to the needs of the city and, I think, we can reach a ratio of 50%/50%,» says the interlocutor.

The company additionally developed the «trolley-power bank» function. Having a high-voltage battery in the transport and a converter, the trolleybus can become a power source at a critical moment, for example, for a medical institution that needs it.

Hydrogen transport

Urban hydrogen transport has been operating in Europe for a long time. A few years ago, «Polytechnoservice» wanted to make the first hydrogen trolleybus in Ukraine. For this, the company ordered and purchased the appropriate equipment. However, after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, the project was postponed. «Now they are buying trolleybuses with autonomous operation, this decision suits everyone,» adds Mykola Kugut.

However, the company has retained the opportunity to make a hydrogen trolleybus and is ready to talk about it with cities that are interested in such a development. How does it work? A hydrogen cell is an additional power cell where hydrogen is converted into electrical energy. At the same time, the trolleybus still has a battery on board, which receives energy from a hydrogen cell. There is an electric bus powered by hydrogen. Special cylinders that can be filled are used to transport hydrogen.

The main advantage of such a solution is the environmental friendliness of transport. The price of using hydrogen is close to the cost of using diesel fuel for a bus that moves around the city.

Inside the trolleybus

The company tests its own developments in production. For this, the systems that are inside the trolleybus are simulated. Here, for example, is a copy of the drive. This is a special container, with the help of which the programmer sees graphs and processes and can adjust the program according to the load:

For such testing, you need to create variants of the driver’s workplace. It turned out that it has many buttons for all the cases that can happen on the road:

«One of our first projects is a signal converter. There are many analog signals in the trolleybus. Conventionally speaking, it collects them all, digitizes them and thus communicates with the drive and the monitor,» explains Mykola Kugut.

In modern trolleybuses, analog signals are abandoned as much as possible. But the commands still need to be transmitted. For this, a CAN bus is used, which resembles an Internet wire. It helps to significantly reduce the number of wires in the trolleybus. In order for signals to be constantly transmitted to the right places, «Polytechnoservice» uses special blocks (12 of them) and 2 CAN-buses:

The company says that the advantages of such a system are the ability to control various systems of the trolleybus, such as doors, heaters, air conditioning, the system of automatic assembly of current receivers using the CAN bus. This allows you to replace hundreds of meters of wires with two CAN-buses and to be able to configure tasks for these devices with your own software. In this way, the company can be more flexible, fulfilling the customer’s requirements in the sense of convenient management of this or that device.

On one of the trolleybuses, such a system is currently being adjusted at the level of programmers. The company from Brovary made its own driver’s workplace, competing with the French manufacturer.

Assembly and batteries

Provided that you have prepared all the components in advance, the company assembles the trolleybus in 2 weeks. The full cycle of assembly takes much more time, because it includes the manufacture of various elements.

Before the full-scale invasion, the company had a desire to produce a completely in-house trolleybus. It was possible to create a prototype for which there is documentation and which was planned as a business project. The director of «Polytechnoservice» says that in today’s conditions it is impossible to make a trolleybus, it requires additional capacity and money. However, the development remained:

Cable and harness products are produced separately. Each wire has its own address and marking:

Several impurities are allocated for the collection of trolleybus batteries. Employees carry out testing and charging, checking the working capacity of the product:

With the help of special frames, the future battery is assembled into blocks, welding the contacts at the bottom:

At the final stage, the trolleybus battery looks like this:

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