H2 Olympics power: BC Transit gets first fuel cell bus with Ballard stack
Over two years ago, we first learned the British Columbia Transit was planning to acquire 20 fuel cell-powered buses for use in the Whistler area ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The first of those buses was recently delivered to the transit company with the rest arriving over the coming weeks and months. The 20 bus-fleet will be the single largest deployment of hydrogen-fueled buses in the world. The buses are built on chassis supplied by ISE Corporation and use fuel cell stacks supplied by Ballard Power Systems.
Ballard sold off its automotive fuel cell unit to Daimler and Ford last year, but is continuing to develop the technology for heavy duty and stationary applications. The buses are using Ballard's FCvelocity-HD6 stack which is available in 75 and 150 kW versions. The HD6 can be operated from temperatures of -4 to 20 degrees F. The fuel cell buses will continue to operate in Whistler beyond the Olympics, replacing conventional buses now in use.
[Source: Ballard Power Systems]
press release
Ballard's Fuel Cell Module Powers The First BC Transit Zero-Emission Fuel Cell Bus
VANCOUVER, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD; NASDAQ: BLDP) congratulates BC Transit, the Province of British Columbia, the Government of Canada, and its consortium partners on the introduction of the first bus in BC Transit's fleet of 20 hydrogen fuel cell buses. Representatives from Ballard were on site as Premier Gordon Campbell unveiled "Bus 1" on Friday, October 3, 2009 in Vancouver. BC Transit's fleet will become the largest single deployment of zero-emission fuel cell buses worldwide and it is powered by Ballard's heavy-duty fuel cell module, the FCvelocity(TM)-HD6.
"All of us at Ballard are proud of to be partners in helping BC lead the way in adopting new technologies that support sustainable practices and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said John Sheridan, Ballard's President and Chief Executive Officer. "The BC Transit fuel cell bus fleet is an important proof point for the level of robustness and durability offered by Ballard clean energy products - not only in buses but also in material handling and stationary power."
Fuel cell buses are zero-emission vehicles, with no greenhouse gases, particulates, or harmful emissions released during operation. Water is the only byproduct. BC Transit's fleet of fuel cell buses is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 1,800 tonnes per year in British Columbia.
Ballard's FCvelocity(TM)-HD6 is ideal for integration into bus applications. It is designed to be a plug-and-play solution for any fuel cell or hybrid fuel cell bus platform and to be robust and durable in harsh motive conditions. The BC Transit fleet is the first that incorporates Ballard's heavy-duty fuel cell module into a hybrid fuel cell/battery architecture with an electric drive, which enables higher vehicle efficiency and improved fuel cell durability.
BC Transit's fleet of fuel cell buses will operate in revenue service in the Resort Municipality of Whistler, British Columbia during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and beyond.
About Ballard Power Systems
Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD; NASDAQ: BLDP) is recognized as a world leader in the design, development, manufacture and sale of clean energy fuel cell products. Ballard's mission is to accelerate fuel cell product adoption. To learn more about what Ballard is doing with Power to Change the World(R), visit www.ballard.com.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
paulwesterberg 6:12PM (10/12/2009)
It sounds like the fuel cell can have problems if the temperature gets below -4 degrees, which is known to happen at whistler in the winter months like when the Olympics are happening.
How many miles can the fuel cell drive this bus before it needs to be replaced?
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PopSmith 6:29PM (10/12/2009)
I was wondering the same things. If the temperature dips below -4 Fahrenheit does the fuel-cell just stop working?
Also, the temperature in the article says -4 to 20 Fahrenheit, I wonder what the actual temperature range is as well as a few other things:
1) How is the Hydrogen used produced?
2) How many miles will it go on a tank?
3) How many miles will the fuel-cell last?
letstakeawalk 12:15AM (10/13/2009)
Must be a typo in the article. Ballard rates the HD6 to operate from -20 degrees C to 60 degrees C.
At maximum use, the fuel cell uses 1.1-2.2 g/s of hydrogen, but since its a hybrid, that rate would be significantly lower averaged out in real operating conditions.
Ballard gives a 6,000 hour life expectancy for the FC itself, but in another PDF, they warranty it for 12,000 hours or five years in an actual bus application. I'd assume that the 12,000 hour is the correct number, especially considering that that figure takes into account a hybrid application which puts less strain on the fuel cell.
http://www.ballard.com/files/pdf/Spec_Sheets/PEM_FC_Product_Portfolio_docmetrics.pdf
http://www.ballard.com/files/pdf/Case_Studies/Bus_Benefits_docmetrics.pdf
KK 12:03PM (10/13/2009)
-20 to 60 C would be -4 to 140 F.
I do wonder what happens when they try to start it up on a cold winter morning, when everything is below -20 C. Perhaps they need (and have?) an auxiliary battery heater that works like an engine block heater?
letstakeawalk 2:10PM (10/13/2009)
"Due to Whistler’s coastal proximity, temperatures are moderate through the winter season, rarely dipping below -10°C (12°F) in the valley and -15°C (5°F) in the alpine during the coldest part of the year. Expect -5°C (22°F) average daily alpine temperatures during most of the winter months."
http://www.whistler.com/weather/history
There are only a few days during the entire year when the minimum operating temperature would be exceeded.
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=BC%20%20&StationName=&SearchType=&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=348&&autofwd=0
Dave 6:25PM (10/12/2009)
"The HD6 can be operated from temperatures of -4 to 20 degrees F."
There must be a typo here. I'm sure the maximum operating temp is not 20 F.
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rick smith 6:48PM (10/12/2009)
do the buses also have batteries and might they be lithium phosphate???
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jake 7:41PM (10/12/2009)
I didn't realize 20 buses is the largest fleet effort. Didn't Iceland have hydrogen buses too? I do see some hydrogen buses on my local AC transit.
For AC transit, hydrogen bus they use 53kWh Zebra (nickel sodium chloride) battery pack. This is the same size as the battery on the Tesla Roadster. However the AC transit bus is a hybrid approach so it might be different. It is still using a 120kW (continuous) fuel cell stack so it has decent power. Since the Ballard stack doesn't seem that much more powerful, I'm thinking it will need batteries/capacitors of some kind.
http://www.actransit.org/environment/hyroad_main.wu
http://www.actransit.org/environment/hyroad_specs.htm?PHPSESSID=ceed5a8ea89daaaf3de1a8cd01a369ae
The BC Transit site lacks any kind of useful information (it only has a couple of press releases). Kind of disappointing for one of the largest hydrogen bus fleets in the world.
http://www.bctransit.com/fuelcell/
augustus 7:44PM (10/12/2009)
jake I would imagine that FC busses are much quieter than normal busses which I must say would be nice.
augustus 7:20PM (10/12/2009)
Seeing how the editors at this site can't be bothered to look something up, I headed over to Ballard.com to see what was up.
Operating temperature is -20c to 60c, not that bad.
Operating lifetime is 6,000 hours, seems a bit low (2 years of 8 hours per day constant use, 365 days per year). I have no idea how to correctly parse this operating lifetime and how it would compare to a natural gas bus engine. (what happens at 6,000 hours, how much maintenance is needed beforehand, if the bus coasts does that count towards the 6,000 hours, etc).
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jake 9:04PM (10/12/2009)
For fuel cell cars the target is 2000 hours for 2009. So far they have proven 1900 hours of real world operation, and that corresponds to about 57k miles. 6000 hours translates to about 180k miles, which would be pretty good for an automobile application and above the target they have set for 2015 (5000 hours).
http://www.fuelcellpartnership.org/progress/technology/doetargets
However, buses seem to have higher demand. 6000 hours seems to correspond to only ~60-70k miles even on a hybrid system (which should place less demand on the fuel cell). For the Diesel buses, it seems they drive about ~40-50k miles annually, so your calculation of about 2 years of operation is fairly accurate. It does seem a bit low. The hydrogen buses being tested seem to be a little under-utilized at ~20k miles a year, so they probably will last 3-4 years under the current usage. They do seem to be working on improving durability though.
(pdf link)
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/merit_review_2009/technology_validation/tv_08_eudy.pdf
Sean 8:04PM (10/12/2009)
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going off memory here....
Fuel cells originally did not work bellow freezing because the water coming out would freeze and expand and destroy the cell. I know they solved this, but how? The only thing I could think of is heating the fuel cell so that the water never freezes. Is this what they do or did they fix the problem another way?
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Dave 9:46PM (10/12/2009)
When operating, the fuel cell is plenty warm to avoid freezing.
The problem comes when the car is shut off and parked. The water needs to be completely drained / removed from the fuel cell before it freezes.
Lots of info on fuel cell development here:
http://www.aerospaceengineeringmagazine.sae.org/automag/features/fuelcells/index.htm
JustZisGuy 7:13PM (10/14/2009)
Ballard's own summary page states, for the fuel cell to be used in the bus, an ambient operating temperature of -20 to 60 C, but a minimum stack startup temperature of 0 C. i.e. above the freezing point of water.
Ummmm.... that's a problem, isn't it, for anything other than a fleet which is kept indoors during the winter (or kept warm with a "block" heater). For one thing, this means the fuel cell cannot be shut off for much of the year when the temperature is below 0.
Geoff de Ruiter 8:20PM (10/12/2009)
I saw one at the University of Victoria last week, it was very quiet.
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Der_Alte 2:31AM (10/13/2009)
A local news article on the story cited that the hydrogen fuel for daily operations is being trucked in from Quebec. No indication on the process used to extract the hydrogen back in Quebec. Not exactly what one would deem sustainable.
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Torbjorn 3:59AM (10/13/2009)
Fuel cells have overcome the freezing problem many years ago. One way is building the stack in v configuration as Honda has done. The v configuration allows the water buildup to drain easier....just one of many options to design your way out of the freezing issue.
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JustZisGuy 8:59AM (10/13/2009)
Autobloggreen is wrong, as usual. The buses are from New Flyer, the hybrid drive system is from ISE, the fuel cell is from Ballard.
http://www.newflyer.com/index/07-08-03-bc-transit-fuel-cell-bus-order
http://www.isecorp.com/ises-hybrid-fuel-cell-drive-system-powers-the-first-bc-transit-production-bus-unveiled-in-vancouber-bc/
And... doesn't anyone remember the hoopla over fuel cell buses in 1998? They were on trial in Vancouver then as well. Really, if the best they can do a decade later is a fuel cell with a "up to 6,000 hrs" "Durability/Lifetime target" - what hope is there for this technology?
6,000 hours is nothing. That's on the order of 600 days of operation, in normal transit system usage. That's less than two years.
Yes, it's nice to have a quiet, smooth propulsion system, but if the whole thing is unsustainable, it strikes me as nothing more than a gimmick for the 2010 Olympics.
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Dave 11:13AM (10/13/2009)
"6,000 hours is nothing. That's on the order of 600 days of operation, in normal transit system usage. That's less than two years."
As stated above, the fuel cell is probably not operating all of the time that the bus is, so the actual operating time of the bus is much more than 6000 hours.
And the real question is - what does it cost to get the bus back on the road and how long does it take?
The fuel cell stack is only part of the equasion. I assume that the hydrogen tanks, the fuel cell cooling system, and the electric motor last much longer than 6000 hrs. And that the platinum in the depleted stack can be recovered.
Much of the fuel cell itself, such as the case and the hydrogen injector(s) may also last much longer than 6000 hours.
So - we need to know what a rebuilt fuel cell will cost after the core charge is subtracted.
Of course, by the time these fuel cells die, Ballard (or someone else) may be offering a cheaper, more robust unit, relegating these to nothing more than platinum donor status.
JustZisGuy 12:07PM (10/13/2009)
I doubt it is much more than 6000 hours, and my estimate of 10 hours usage per day is actually low for some transit systems. Ballard itself calls this the "Lifetime target", using the phrase "up to 6,000 hours". Here's what happened with the fuel cell bus trial a decade ago:
http://www.transitchicago.com/news/default.aspx?Archive=y&pg=102&ArticleId=1816
They ran the buses for two years, put on a rather unimpressive 30,000 miles, and called it quits. I recall those buses being converted to another power source and continuing in service, though in doing a web search for an article referencing this just now all I can find is glowing reports of the future of hydrogen fuel cell buses and the possibility of converting Chicago's entire fleet of 2,000 buses and isn't it great and it's quiet and the hydrogen economy and the future and zero emission and fuel cell and hydrogen and the future and...
Perhaps the technology will be practical some years down the road, but my main point remains: a lifetime target of 6,000 hours is completely impractical. Most bus engines power their buses at least a million miles, and last for times measured in decades, not years. Yes, significant maintenance is required, but we're not talking about complete replacement. A power source which is more expensive in the first place and lasts a fraction as long, using a fuel which is more expensive - yes, of course, that's going to be a raging success.
If the government of Canada and British Columbia actually wanted to do something useful for the planet and demonstrate their green credentials, they would string some wires up in Whistler and run trolleybuses. Electricity in B.C. is 90% hydroelectric. That makes for as close to a zero emission, zero pollution, zero impact bus as you're ever going to get.