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In This Section  | NewsNREL REVIEW OF HYDROGEN BUSES AT CONNECTICUT TRANSITThe National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently published a preliminary report on its evaluation of a Connecticut Transit (CTTRANSIT) fuel cell bus in service in Hartford, CT. The report includes early results and experiences from April 2007 through June 2008. The evaluation covers one prototype fuel cell bus in demonstration service; a comparison to three diesel baseline buses is provided to measure progress of the technology toward market readiness.
During the data collection period, CTTRANSIT operated the bus for more than 12,000 miles with an average fuel economy of 5.4 miles per diesel equivalent gallon. The bus operated primarily on the downtown Hartford Star Shuttle route, which has a much slower average speed with more idle time than other CTTRANSIT routes; the average route speed on the Star route is 6 mph versus 12 mph for other routes.
The CTTRANSIT fuel cell bus experienced periods of downtime as well as periods of excellent performance during the first year of demonstration. The report identifies the reasons for the downtime. The Hartford project partners pushed the technology to its limits (and beyond) to identify and address design issues. Many of the issues that were documented have been resolved, and the newest data from demonstration of the upgraded system in the bus suggest very positive trends in better availability and bus usage.
To download the document, go to: http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/43847.pdf .
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