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In This Section  | NewsSUNLINE TRANSIT BUS EVALUATIONThe National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has recently published a third report on its evaluation of hydrogen and fuel cell buses in service at SunLine Transit Agency in Thousand Palms, California. This report provides an update to the previous reports (Feb 2007 & Sep 2007) and includes results and experience through March 2008. The evaluation covers one prototype fuel cell bus, one prototype hydrogen hybrid internal combustion engine (HHICE) bus, and five new CNG baseline buses operating from the same SunLine bus depot. During the data collection period (Jan 2006 - Mar 2008), SunLine operated the fuel cell bus nearly 51,000 miles in service with an overall fuel economy of 7.19 miles per kg. For comparison, SunLine's CNG buses have an average fuel economy of 3.02 miles per gasoline gallon equivalent. During the same timeframe, the HHICE bus accumulated more than 43,000 miles with an average fuel economy of 4.34 miles per kg.
To download the document, go to: http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/43741-1.pdf for the evaluation results and http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/43741-2.pdf for the Appendices.
NREL continues to track the performance of SunLine's fuel cell bus. SunLine has entered into an agreement with its project partners to operate a new fuel cell power system in the bus for another two-year period. A fact sheet describing the extended testing can be downloaded at this link: http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/43203.pdf | |
