Electrification of Public Urban Transport: Funding Opportunities, Bus Fleet, and Energy Use Forecasts for Poland

Diverse measures related to the electrification of transport fleets have been implemented in many countries due to the increasing consumption of fossil fuels and their negative impact on the climate and human health. Such transformation is effective if electric energy is sourced from renewable sources. The rate of transport electrification is determined mainly by legislative and financial incentives, charging infrastructure density, and fuel price. The main aims of the study are to present financial support for investments in low-emission transport infrastructure and to provide forecasts of the fleet of urban electric buses and the expected demand for electricity consumed by them in Poland. The main source of data was statistical reports published by Statistics Poland. Because the available sample was short, basic statistical models were used. The results obtained indicate the stable growth of investments in regional low-emission transport infrastructure, characterized by strong heterogeneity. The foreseen number of electric buses in urban public transport in the realistic variants ranges between 1486 and 1626. In the optimistic variants, the forecast values are significantly higher. However, they can only be achieved if there is a significant increase in investment. The electricity demand forecast for the realistic variant shows a demand of 341,266.50 MWh.