BC Transit Fuel Cell Bus Project Evaluation Results: Second Report

Abstract

Beginning in 2009, British Columbia Transit (BC Transit) led a project to conduct a 5-year demonstration of 20 fuel cell electric buses (FCEB) in Whistler, Canada. The FCEB fleet was introduced during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and operated through March 2014. The primary goals of the project were to investigate the status of the technology, to demonstrate that FCEBs could provide daily service in an urban transit operation, and to contribute to the provincial government’s climate action goals. During the demonstration it was the world’s largest FCEB fleet in a single location. BC Transit collaborated with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to evaluate the buses in revenue service. CARB enlisted NREL to conduct a third-party evaluation of the BC Transit fleet to aid in understanding the status of the technology in transit. CARB staff has been gathering data on zero-emission buses to assess the status of the technologies as directed by its Board during the July 2009 hearing. While the BC Transit fleet is located outside of the United States, the operation of transit fleets within Canada is similar to that of fleets in the United States. The bus is designed for the North American market, and future models could be built to meet ‘Buy America’ requirements for U.S. transit agencies. NREL published its first report on the demonstration in February 2014. This report is an update to the previous report and covers 3 full years of revenue service data on the buses from April 2011 through March 2014. The FCEBs are 42-foot, low-floor buses built by New Flyer with a hybrid electric propulsion system that includes a Ballard Power Systems fuel cell and Valence lithium phosphate batteries. During the demonstration, the buses were fueled at a liquid hydrogen storage and gaseous dispensing station designed, built, and maintained by Air Liquide Canada. During the 3-year data period analyzed for the report, the FCEB fleet accumulated more than 3 million kilometers (1.88 million miles) and approximately 150,500 hours on the fuel cell power plants. Also the FCEBs have an average fuel consumption of 15.67 kilograms of hydrogen per 100 kilometers. This equates to a fuel economy of 4.48 miles per diesel gallon equivalent (mi/DGE). The buses achieved an average availability of 64%. Toward the end of the planned demonstration, several buses developed durability issues with the air supply system that resulted in the agency permanently removing them from service. BC Transit decided to remove the buses from service because the repair cost and wait time for parts was not suitable considering the time left in the demonstration. If the demonstration had been scheduled for a longer time period, the agency would have repaired the buses and placed them back in service. NREL calculated an adjusted availability to account for the buses pulled from service. Overall adjusted average availability for the fleet during the third year was 71%, which is consistent with the first two years (69% for both years). The adjusted availability for the entire 3-year period is 70%.