Brampton will lead the global market with the introduction of a compatible electric bus network.

“It’s a world’s first here in Brampton,” said Catherine McKenna, minister of environment and climate change, at the Brampton Transit Sandalwood Facility. On Monday morning the minister, along with Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, announced that the city would be receiving more than $11 million toward Phase 1 of a state-of-the-art electric bus pilot project.

The program will be the first in the world to use “charging infrastructure for different kinds of buses,” meaning that the new buses will be compatible with charging equipment used by competitors, the government said.

The money will be used to purchase eight electric buses and the compatible overhead charging system. The Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium joined McKenna and Brown for the announcements, as well as charging equipment suppliers, Siemens and Asea Brown Boveri.

The program, which was originally announced in 2016, will be a collaboration between all levels of government, the private and the public sector.

“We need new energy-efficient technologies to be a part of our everyday life,” said Brown.

Around $7.6 million will go toward the deployment of the buses and overhead chargers, while $3.6 million will come from Natural Resources Canada’s Green Infrastructure Program to help the city install, operate and maintain the equipment.

The program will feature buses from two suppliers: Winnipeg-based New Flyer and Quebec-based Nova Bus. The New Flyer bus model will be the Xcelsior, which can charge up to 450 kilowatts. The Xcelsior can operate on-route for up to 16 hours and charges in less than two.

The new buses are expected to hit two existing routes in Brampton — routes 23 Sandalwood and 26 Mount Pleasant — in late 2020 and early 2021. Overhead on-route charging stations will be launched at the Mount Pleasant Village terminal, the Queen Street/Highway 50 Züm station and the Sandalwood Transit Facility.