Fuel Cell Buses in U.S. Transit Fleets: Current Status 2017

2017PDFTech ReportNREL/TP-5400-70075Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308;Prepared under Task No. FCHT.10266.04.01.01Fuel cell vehiclesElectric vehiclesElectric busesFuel Cell Transit BusesFuel cell busesUnited StatesNational Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.)Eudy, LesliePost, MatthewNational Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.)Battelle Memorial InstituteUS Transportation CollectionThis report, published annually, summarizes the progress of fuel cell electric bus (FCEB) development in the United States and discusses the achievements and challenges of introducing fuel cell propulsion in transit. The report provides a summary of results from evaluations performed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). NREL considers these FCEB designs to be around technology readiness level (TRL) 7 to 8, that is, full-scale validation in a relevant environment. At this point in development, capital and operating costs for FCEBs are still much higher than those of conventional diesel technology. This is to be expected considering diesel is a very mature technology (TRL 9) and FCEBs are still in the development stage. This annual status report combines results from all FCEB demonstrations, tracks the progress of the FCEB industry toward meeting technical targets (as shown in Table ES-1), documents the lessons learned, and discusses the path forward for commercial viability of fuel cell technology for transit buses. These data and analyses help provide needed information to guide future early-stage research and development. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Transportation\u2019s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) have established performance and cost targets for FCEBs. These targets, established with industry input, include interim targets for 2016 and ultimate targets for commercialization. FCEB technology continues to show progress toward meeting technical targets for reliability and durability while also decreasing in cost. Table ES-1 summarizes the performance of the FCEBs in the report compared to these targets