Fleet-wide Electrification Impacts Assessment for the Valley Transportation Authority

Technical Report · Sun Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1710197· OSTI ID:1710197

Eichman, Joshua ^[1]; Kotz, Andrew ^[1]; Miller, Eric ^[1]; Kelly, Kenneth ^[1]; Ficenec, Karen ^[1]

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1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

This report explores the long-term electrification opportunities for the Valley Transit Authority’s (VTA) transit bus fleet. The potential for transit bus electrification at VTA as well as the economic impacts of partial and complete electrification are explored. We use the Revenue Operation and Device Optimization model to determine the optimal charging, operation and lowest capital and operating cost solution to achieve different levels of electrification to meet their existing routes. This study finds that, relying on only depot charging, around 70% of the daily trips by VTA’s transit bus fleet can be replaced with battery electric buses (BEBs) today. The benefits and drawbacks of five methods for improving the electrification potential beyond that achievable with only depot charging are discussed including (1) increase charger power, (2) purchase of larger vehicle batteries, (3) en-route charging, (4) purchasing additional buses and swapping them to enable the existing routes/blocks1 to be met, and (5) route/block redesign. A strategy is developed to enable full fleet electrification by increasing charger power or allowing intraday charging as a proxy for the options mentioned above. This method allows us to develop an understanding of the impacts and trade-offs of full fleet electrification. Two charging strategies are examined. Immediate charging, when the bus is charged as soon as it arrives at a depot or en-route charging station, and smart charging, which uses a controller to determine the best times to charge to achieve the lowest charging cost, while maintaining the same trip schedules. Smart charging is effective at reducing the peak power consumption, which can be reduced by between 31% and 65% compared to immediate charging. This translates directly to lower electricity demand charges and lower costs for possible distribution system upgrades. The total lifetime net present value (NPV) costs for different scenarios are presented in Figure ES-1. Scenarios are separated into three sections. The first stacked bar on the left is the base case (business-as-usual) where all buses are diesel hybrids, the next four bars include partial and full fleet electrification utilizing only immediate charging, and the last four bars include partial and full fleet electrification utilizing smart charging. The results show that smart charging scenarios are within ±4% of the lifetime NPV cost of the diesel-hybrid only (business-as-usual) scenario. The scenarios with full fleet electrification (i.e., including intraday charging) are 4% lower cost and those with partial fleet electrification (i.e., without intraday charging) are 2%–3% higher. However, it is important to note that the intraday charging scenarios do not include any additional costs for the equipment necessary to achieve intraday charging (e.g., additional chargers, larger batteries, new route design). Additionally, it is worth noting that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credit received for implementing electric buses is essential to achieving these results.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: California Energy Commission; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1710197
• Report Number(s): NREL/TP--5400-77547; MainId:27483; UUID:950fcc5e-9f14-4c3f-88d7-9f75e60ffe15; MainAdminID:18803
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
demand charge
electric bus
electrification
fleet-wide
lifetime cost
optimization
renewable integration
retail rate
smart charging
transit bus