Program Updates
Fleet of zero-emission buses
As the lead agency in Zero Emission Bay Area (ZEBA), a coalition of Bay Area transit providers, AC Transit runs twelve, next-generation fuel cell buses out of our Emeryville facility.
Energy Station Upgrades
Our new fueling facility in Emeryville has been operational since late 2011, and was formally dedicated in April of 2012. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Chair of the California Air Resources Board Mary Nichols and a dozen other federal, state, and local officials joined in the dedication ceremony and praised AC Transit for being “a pioneer in bringing fuel cell technology into the community and demonstrating its virtues for clean air and energy efficiency.”
We are also moving towards the development of another energy station, which will be located in Oakland and feature 420kW of stationary fuel cells.
Evaluation
A primary goal of the HyRoad program is to demonstrate the viability of zero-emission public transit to the nation and to the world. Our demonstration fleet of fuel cell vehicles is being evaluated for performance and public acceptance by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
In June, 2010, NREL published a report on its evaluation of fuel cell buses in service at AC Transit in Oakland, California. This report results and experience through February, 2010. The evaluation covers three prototype fuel cell buses in comparison to six diesel baseline buses operating from the same bus depot. During the data collection period (Apr 2006 – Feb 2010), AC Transit operated the fuel cell buses nearly 225,000 miles with an overall fuel economy of 6.60 miles per kg, which equates to 6.85 miles per diesel equivalent gallon. For comparison, AC Transit’s diesel buses had a fuel economy of 4.2 mpg during the same timeframe. Using this as a baseline, this last generation of fuel cell buses had a 61% better fuel economy than diesel buses. According to the NREL report, the fuel economy advantage for the current generation of buses, which AC Transit has just begun to operate, is expected to increase.
To download the document directly, go here. Other NREL documents on AC Transit’s program and the state of fuel cell bus technology in the United States can be accessed by going to Fuel Cell Buses in U.S. Transit Fleets: Current Status 2010 or Bay Area Transit Agencies Propel Fuel Cell Buses Toward Commercialization.
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