Going to Town on
Some Bay Area bus passengers are already riding the "Hydrogen Highway", and others will soon join them. Two transit teams—AC Transit/Golden Gate Transit (AC/GGT) and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority/San Mateo County Transit District (VTA/SamTrans)—are implementing demonstration programs using hydrogen-fueled buses.
After several years of planning, construction of fueling infrastructure, and vehicle acquisition and testing, hydrogen-fueled buses have gone into revenue service in the Bay Area. On February 28, VTA began carrying passengers on hydrogen-fueled buses on two regular routes; AC Transit ran a prototype bus on three routes last year, and three new buses will begin service in September 2005.
The new buses are a product of a "carrot and stick" approach to improving air quality—the stick in the form of a 2000 California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulation requiring transit districts to shift to cleaner buses, followed by the carrot in the form of grants from state and federal agencies as well as partnerships with private industry to fund the change. The CARB regulation offered transit districts two choices—stop buying diesel buses and shift to other fuels such as natural gas, or continue to use diesel fuel for a longer period and participate in a demonstration program using an alternative fuel. All Bay Area transit districts chose the "diesel path", which allowed them to team up to do the alternative fuel project.
Demonstration programs such as those by AC/GGT and VTA/SamTrans are essential in determining the most effective ways to operate a hydrogen-fueled bus fleet before transit districts make heavy investments of taxpayer dollars in the new technology.
When hydrogen and oxygen are combined in a hydrogen fuel cell, the results are heat, water and electricity that can power a vehicle. For public transit, this means buses are quieter and have no polluting emissions. Offsetting these advantages are the need for a new vehicle design and new infrastructure for fueling and maintenance.
The demonstration programs contain a variety of ways to implement this fuel cell technology. VTA/Samtrans chose three 40-foot, low-floor buses from Gillig Corporation with fuel cells by Ballard Power Systems, Inc. The buses are fueled at a facility located in VTA's Cerone Division, using liquid hydrogen supplied by Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. The facility also includes two maintenance bays specially outfitted for the hydrogen-fueled buses. SamTrans is contributing to capital and operating costs.
AC Transit, which had been exploring hydrogen fuel potential before the CARB regulation, began with a leased 30-foot prototype bus produced by Thor and ISE Corporation of San Diego. The initial fueling facility, which opened in October 2002 in Richmond, manufactures hydrogen from water using an electric charge. It is a joint venture with Stuart Energy and the California Fuel Cell Partnership. This facility produces 24 kilograms (kg) of hydrogen per day, enough fuel for the prototype Thor/ISE bus and for light-duty vehicles used by the Sacramento-based Partnership when these vehicles are in the Bay Area.
For ongoing use, AC Transit worked with Van Hool, ISE and UTC Fuel Cells to design three 40-foot buses with fuel cells from UTC and heavy-duty hybrid drives from ISE. In a public/private partnership, ChevronTexaco is constructing a second fueling station in AC Transit's Seminary Division in Oakland. This station will feature a small-scale onsite natural gas steam reformer, which will provide up to 150 kg of hydrogen per day, and will be used to fuel the Van Hool vehicles. The Oakland station will also be able to co-generate enough power for a stationary fuel cell electric generator to help power AC Transit's maintenance facilities.
Once the Oakland station is completed, the new Van Hool buses will begin carrying passengers on regular routes. For the first year, these will be routes that can be served from the Seminary station, but plans call for purchasing a mobile 100 kg fueler that will be able to travel to other operating divisions so that the buses can run on other routes. These may include GGT routes, such as the #42 line which crosses the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. GGT personnel will be trained on operating and maintaining the vehicles. The AC/GGT program will be evaluated for vehicle performance, and also for how well it works for agencies and the public. Early evaluation of the prototype bus has indicated that it is nearly as reliable as a diesel bus and twice as fuel-efficient.
Other uses for the new station include fueling up to nine Hyundai fuel cell cars that will be tested by AC Transit road supervisors over a five year period. The district is also constructing a HyRoad Learning Center with opportunities to see the fueling station in action and hands-on exhibits to educate visitors on how hydrogen contributes to energy efficiency. The Center will be a partnership with ChevronTexaco, Lawrence Hall of Science, Schatz Energy Research Center at Humboldt State University, and the Chabot Space and Science Center.
The VTA/SamTrans program is estimated to cost $18.4 million, while the AC/GGT program has obtained $20 million in funding. Funding sources for the two programs include Santa Clara County's half-cent sales tax, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the California Energy Commission, the California Transportation Commission/Caltrans, CARB, the Federal Transit Administration, the US Department of Energy Clean Cities Program and CalSTART. Companies whose technology is being used have also contributed to the programs.
It is hard to tell at this point if hydrogen is indeed the fuel of the future for transit buses, and if so, whether there will be a uniform technology or many local variations. The answers will come from the different demonstration programs now underway. Whatever option is chosen to replace current diesel buses, new buses should be both quieter and better for the region's air quality.
Leslie Stewart
For more information:
Shawnora Weddles, VTA, 408-321-7575; shawnora.weddles@vta.org
Christine Dunn, SamTrans; dunnc@samtrans.com
Jaimie Levin, AC Transit, 510-891-7244; jlevin@actransit.org
On the Web:
VTA: http://www.vta.org/projects/ZEBs.html
AC Transit: http://www.actransit.org/environment/hyroad_main.wu
California Fuel Cell Partnership: http://www.fuelcellpartnership.org/