AC Transit, SunLine Adding Fuel Cell Buses to Fleets
(reprinted, with permission, from the June 17, 2002, issue of Passenger
Transport)
Two public transportation agencies in California--AC Transit of Oakland and the SunLine
Transit Agency in Thousand Palms--are preparing to become the first public transportation
agencies in the U.S. to place fuel cell buses into regular service as part of their
fleets.
Both agencies are members of the California Fuel Cell Partnership. The primary
objective of this program is to work in partnership with the private sector to
commercialize fuel cell technology for the transit industry.
Acting as the lead agency in the procurement process, AC Transit is entering into an
exclusive agreement with ISE Research--ThunderVolt of San Diego, a designer and integrator
of fuel cell and electric hybrid propulsion systems, and UTC Fuel Cells of Connecticut, a
United Technologies company, for the delivery of four fuel cell buses between July and
December of 2004.
Three of the buses will be owned and operated by AC Transit, which will work
cooperatively with the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway, and Transportation District to
demonstrate and evaluate fuel cell vehicles in comparison with diesel buses. SunLine will
own and operate a fourth bus. Each bus will cost approximately $3.13 million, plus
$550,000 per bus for a two-year warranty extension.
AC Transit has contracted with Van Hool of Belgium to build three 40-foot bus bodies
for its fuel cell operations, while SunLine is contracting with North American Bus
Industries to build one 45-foot bus made from lightweight composite materials.
"We have negotiated a landmark fuel cell agreement with a strong team of very
committed partners, which will enable us to conduct a very credible and thorough
evaluation of this extremely important emerging technology," said AC Transit General
Manager Rick Fernandez.
AC Transit’s evaluation will focus on service in hilly areas (operating on grades
as steep as 17 percent), freeway express service to San Francisco, and service on
heavy-duty trunk lines carrying in excess of 20,000 people per day. SunLine’s
evaluation will look at the effects of heat on fuel cell operation, as well as comparing
fuel cell reliability with CNG buses.
Fuel cell buses are quiet, electrically propelled vehicles, that are environmentally
friendly, emitting only distilled water as exhaust from the tailpipe in the form of steam.
The AC Transit and SunLine buses will operate on a fuel cell hybrid-electric propulsion
system, using a 170-kilowatt fuel cell from UTC, and either high-density, lightweight
batteries or ultra capacitors to provide acceleration and hill-climbing power and to store
energy from regenerative braking.
AC Transit will fund the fuel cell project with nearly $14 million in grants, primarily
from the state of California, but also including a $1 million congressional earmark and
$300,000 from a U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities Grant. SunLine has grants totaling
$4 million: $2.5 million from the California Air Resources Board and a $1.5 million
congressional earmark.
The extensive, multi-year fuel cell bus evaluation program has been developed in
conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory
and the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California-Davis. Data,
analyses, and reports will be compared with other fuel cell bus programs internationally,
and a central repository of this information will be maintained by NREL and made available
to the public on NREL’s web site.
SunLine already has facilities in place, and can generate hydrogen using a variety of
technologies, including electrolysis from solar and wind power and natural gas
reformation. Design and construction of AC Transit’s hydrogen maintenance center and
fueling station are scheduled to be complete by June 2003.
As the test program continues, the transit agencies plan to seek additional grants in
2004 and 2005 to upgrade their fuel cell systems and warranties, and to expand fleet size
to test more vehicles under operating conditions that reflect the experience of large
transit agencies.
Other U.S. public transportation systems examining the possibility of instituting
service with fuel cell buses include Dallas Area Rapid Transit and the Santa Clara Valley
Transportation Authority in San Jose, Calif., also a member of the California Fuel Cell
Partnership DART’s Mike Hubbell said the system has issued a Request for Proposals
for four fuel cell buses, and expects to award a contract by August.
VTA’s Grace Lynch noted that negotiations are underway for the system to buy its
first set of zero emission buses, saying that if all goes as planned, the new buses are
expected to enter the VTA fleet in the summer of 2003. She also said the San Jose system
plans to begin purchasing only fuel cell buses by 2005.
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