Fuel cell buses competitive on cost
With the price of diesel on the increase, fuel cell manufacturing costs falling and fuel cell reliability improving, UTC president Jan van Dokkum, predicts that hydrogen fuel cell busses will soon be cheaper than incumbent diesel busses.
This month UTC celebrated the largest US order for the company's hydrogen bus fuel cells. Californian bus operator AC Transit has agreed to buy a minimum of eight of UTC Power's 120 kW PureMotion Model 120 fuel cell systems, and Van Dokkum is said to have expressed confidence that the firm would exercise its option to procure a further 13 of the systems.
The company noted that while the first-generation fuel cell buses trialed by AC Transit came with a 4,000-hour warranty, the latest fuel cells will be offered with a warranty period of up to 10,000 hours of operation.
He added that the company was also expecting to see increased interest in the technology from across California. "AC Transit in Oakland has placed this order, but they are working with other operators across the state on fuel cell projects," he said. "The zero-emission vehicle legislation [which was introduced in California recently and requires a proportion of vehicles to be emission free from 2012] covers buses so there is pressure on firms to look at these vehicles.”
It is claimed that improvements to the hybrid engine – designed to make the battery more resilient to the repeated charging and discharging undertaken during operation – means the latest version of the technology is expected to prove as reliable as diesel engines.
The technology is also fast approaching a point where it can compete with diesel buses on cost, according to Van Dokkum. "The first generation of the bus cost $3m (£1.5m), but consistently delivered fuel economy that was over 70 per cent better than a control fleet of diesel buses," he explained. "The second generation will cost $2m, which will bring the full lifecycle costs close to the same as diesel buses when fuel costs are taken into account. Once we get volume production up and running we hope to get the price down to $1m to $1.2m, at which point we will be the more cost-effective option for the operator, while also delivering quiet vehicles with zero ground-level emissions."
It is claimed the AC Transit buses have delivered a 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions compared to diesel buses by sourcing hydrogen made from natural gas, but Van Dokkum insists fully zero-carbon buses are feasible, citing a similar trial in Connecticut that uses hydrogen manufactured using hydroelectric power to run the buses.
Source: Fuel Cell Today