FuelCellsWorks

As part of its commitment to clean vehicle technologies, the City of Burbank tests a fuel cell bus in its mass transit system.

BurbankBus, which provides transit services in and around the City of Burbank, California, has four fixed- route transit lines operating during morning and evening peak rush-hour periods. These routes primarily trans- port commuters between major transit hubs and the city’s employment centers.

Commuters traveling into the area ar- rive at one of the city’s two Metrolink rail stations or at LA Metro’s North Hollywood station, where the Red and Orange Lines terminate. BurbankBus service connects these stations with the Media District, downtown, and Golden State areas. Ridership has grown sub- stantially since the fleet converted to a fixed-route service in 2005, and a total of 478,000 riders per year are expected by the fall of 2010. The City of Burbank has been proac- tive in implementing clean technologies across its operations. The BurbankBus fixed-route fleet consists of 17 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses. This fleet has been running on 100% CNG for about two years. The city’s trash trucks are also run on CNG, and its light- duty vehicle fleet includes battery electrics, hybrid electrics, and several hydrogen- fueled Toyota Prius automobiles.

In 2006, the city announced the start of a zero-emission bus demonstration project funded primarily through a grant from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The city has partnered with Proterra, a Colorado-based bus manufacturer, to bring its first fuel cell bus to the area. The bus design features a battery-dominant plug-in hybrid configuration consisting of batteries and fuel cells; the design was developed under the Federal Transit Administration’s National Fuel Cell Bus Program. Placing its second fuel cell bus in Burbank gives Proterra a West Coast test market for the technology; its first bus is operating in Columbia, South Carolina.

Proterra’s fuel cell bus design features a 35-foot, lightweight composite body that seats a similar number of passengers as a 40-foot conventional bus. The hybrid system in the bus is an electric drive. A lithium titanate battery pack provides pri- mary power to the motor; supplemental charging is provided by two 16-kilowatt Hydrogenics fuel cell power modules and by regenerative braking while the bus is in operation. The battery pack and fuel cells are controlled by on-board computers to regulate the power needs of the bus for optimal efficiency. At the end of the day, the bus can be fully charged by plugging it into a 220-volt outlet.

BurbankBus plans to operate the fuel cell bus on all of its routes to fully test the vehicle’s capabilities in a variety of route and operating conditions. The agency’s goal is to evaluate the technology’s performance and determine whether these kinds of buses should be included in future purchases.

in-Service evaluation

BurbankBus is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fuel Cell Technologies (FCT) Program to evaluate the bus. The agency will run the bus in revenue service for at least one year. During that time, DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will collect and analyze performance and operations data so that researchers can better understand the status of the technology and determine any future develop-ment work that needs to be done. Information gathered during the dem-onstration will also help fleets make informed purchase decisions. Results will be fed back into the research and development process to focus future resources, as appropriate.

A local General Motors employee is one of 87 nationwide to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s 16th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium.

Balasubramanian Lakshmanan, or Balsu as he’s known, was selected from 265 applicants.

Lakshmanan has worked at the General Motors Honeoye Falls Fuel Cell facility for the past seven years and is currently a lab group manager. He has been involved with fuel cell technology since 1999.

The participants — from industry, academia, and government — were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines.

Lakshmanan received a bachelor’s in chemical & electrochemical engineering from the Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi, India and a Ph.D., in chemical engineering from the University of South Carolina, Columbia. He has been awarded two patents and has filed for several more.

The symposium will be held Sept. 23-25 at the IBM Learning Center in Armonk, N.Y., and will examine cloud computing, autonomous aerospace systems, engineering and music, and engineering inspired by biology. A featured speaker will be Dr. Bernard S. Meyerson, IBM Fellow and vice president of innovation.

“As we face the challenges the next century brings, we will rely more than ever on innovative engineers,” said NAE President Charles M. Vest. “The U.S. Frontiers of Engineering program is an opportunity for a diverse group of this country’s most promising young engineers to gather together and discuss multidisciplinary ways of leading us into the economy of tomorrow.”