News

NREL REVIEW OF HYDROGEN BUSES AT SUNLINE TRANSIT

27th September 2007

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has recently published an 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 report (Feb 2007) and includes results and experience through June 2007.  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.

The 40-ft Van Hool fuel cell bus features an electric hybrid drive system by ISE Corporation with UTC Power's PureMotion 120 Fuel Cell Power System and ZEBRA batteries for energy storage.  The HHICE bus from New Flyer has essentially the same electric hybrid drive system from ISE Corp., but with ultracapacitors for energy storage and a Ford V10 Triton engine customized to operate on hydrogen fuel. 

During the data collection period (Jan 2006 - Jun 2007), the fuel cell bus achieved more than 37,000 miles in service with an overall fuel economy of 7.37 miles per kg.  The HHICE bus has traveled more than 38,000 miles during the same period, with a fuel economy of 4.39 miles per kg.  For comparison, SunLine's CNG buses have an average fuel economy of 2.95 miles per gasoline gallon equivalent.