Thanks to the unique collaborative efforts of several agencies and businesses, Burbank will soon be the home of California's first HYDROGEN FUEL CELL PLUG-IN HYBRID ELECTRIC BUS Demonstration Projects. The parties working together to make this possible include: the CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD; the CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISION; the CITY of BURBANK; the FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION (FTA); HYDROGENICS; MARTIN MARIETTA COMPOSITES; MOBILE ENERGY SOLUTIONS; and the BURBANK TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION ("Burbank TMO").

This two-year project is designed to demonstrate the ability to implement a viable Zero Emission transit solution today and not years in the future. The timing of this project is important due to California's new Zero Emission Bus Regulation which requires transit agencies with 200 buses or more to purchase zero emission buses as early as the year 2011. The funding for this project is provided through a grant from the CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD and the CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION as well as monies and contributions from other public and entities.

The goals of this project is to demonstrate:

• Zero emission technology with an affordable fuel cell/battery configuration;
• A light weight body for less energy consumption and reduced street wear;
• Reduced noise pollution;
• Attractive modern vehicle appearance to attract ridership;
• Technology appropriate to meet the Zero Emission Bus regulation purchase requirement;
• Advancement of California's leadership in hydrogen fuel cell adoption and commercialization; and
• A bus that meets the FTA Buy America requirements thus allowing the use of Federal funding to offset local and state funding.

Over the next 12 months, MOBILE ENERGY SOLUTIONS will be assembling the 35 foot long, 37 passenger bus. The light weight composite body bus, provided by MARTIN MARIETTA, will house two HYDROGENICS' 16kW fuel cell modules and lithium titanate batteries. The on board storage tanks provide hydrogen to the fuel cells which produce electricity. This electricity energizes the batteries that power the bus.

During the second year of the project, The bus will service existing BurbankBus shuttle routes including the Media District, Downtown and Airport areas. At the end of each day of service, the bus' hydrogen tanks will be refilled and its batteries recharged using a charger plugged into the electric grid. The Hydrogen BurbankBus is targeted to start route coverage 4th quarter 2008.

About The Partners:

CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD (CARB):
The Air Resources Board is a department of the California Environmental Protection Agency. CARB's mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering effects on the economy. CARB oversees all air pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain health based air quality standards.

CITY OF BURBANK:
The City of Burbank has been a strong supporter of hydrogen technology. Since 2006, the City has been operating a hydrogen station and five hydrogen internal combustion engine converted Prius vehicles as part of a program sponsored by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Addition of the plug-in fuel cell bus will help increase the utilization of the hydrogen station as well as help advance both the fuel cell and battery technologies.

HYDROGENICS:
Hydrogenics Corporation (www.hydrogenics.com) is a globally recognized developer and provider of hydrogen generation and fuel cell products and services, serving the growing industrial and clean energy markets of today and tomorrow. Based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Hydrogenics has operations in North America, Europe and Asia.

MARTIN MARIETTA COMPOSITES:
Martin Marietta Composites manufactures structural composite products used in transportation, construction and military applications. When high strength, low weight and durability are important - composites deliver the solution.

MOBILE ENERGY SOLUTIONS:
Mobile Energy Solutions (www.mobileenergysolutions.com) is a world leader in the development and manufacture of composite body, advanced technology transit and school buses utilizing plug-in, battery dominant hybrid electric technology which allows for a variety of auxiliary power units including fuel cells, bio diesel, CNG and all battery.

BURBANK TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION (BURBANK TMO):
The Burbank TMO is a private sector nonprofit, the specific purpose for which is to study, propose and implement, in a cooperative manner, creative solutions relating to the integration of land use, mobility transportation, air quality and energy issues. Its members are organizations, business entities, employers, property owners and individuals located within Burbank.

By Chris Wiebe

AIRPORT DISTRICT — Burbank Bus will receive more than $3 million in transportation grants to replace older vehicles, add two new buses and integrate a new hybrid–electric fuel cell bus into the fleet.

Grant funding has partly fueled the growth of Burbank's bus system, which has seen route expansion and significant ridership increases in recent years, transportation manager Andrew Carrasco said.

And given the amount of transportation funding available to municipalities, Burbank has enjoyed a generous portion from agencies such as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — to fund fleet expansion — and the California Air Resources Board — to fund experimental vehicles that run on alternative fuels, he said.

"It's significant over a number of categories," Carrasco said. "Obviously, not every city gets their proposal accepted; we've been really fortunate – we're hitting essentially three out of three this season."

The first grant, $210,000 from Metro, will allow Burbank Bus to replace five of its vehicles, cycling older ones out of the fleet, he said.

The second installment, a $649,000 Metro grant, will allow Burbank Bus to purchase two brand new buses, Carrasco said.

Proceeds from a third grant of $1.3 million from the Air Resources Board will go toward a fuel cell bus, a vehicle that is primarily battery-powered and relies fuel-cell technology, he said.

"It holds the same amount of passengers as a 40-foot bus, but it's only 35-feet long because it's got no engine compartment," he said. "It's all electricity, essentially, and the hydrogen fuel cell creates more electricity to power the batteries."

The hybrid buses will also meet Americans with Disability Act requirements and offer wireless Internet access on board, he added.

Advancements like these reflect how far Burbank Bus has come since its inception, City Manager Mary Alvord said.

The line's first service included sending a cab company to shuttle disabled residents to doctor's appointments, she said.

"We would have situations when a cab would take them, say, to downtown Los Angeles and then just leave them," she said.

But as the system grew into a full-scale bus line with five routes, its reach in the community has provided a valuable alternative to car travel, Alvord said.

"I think it's got to keep growing," she said. "All you have to do is look at our freeways and the madness of people sitting on freeways. Eventually you have to start to look at alternative modes of transportation."

Following a tour of SunLine Transit's Sunfuels Fueling Station in Thousand Palms, CA Federal Transit Administrator James Simpson and Congresswoman Mary Bono announced $49 million in federal grants for researchers around the country to explore new ways to make commercially viable hydrogen fuel cell buses a reality.

Three nonprofit organizations from around the country were competitively selected by the FTA to receive a share of the $49 million: the Center for Transportation and the Environment in Atlanta, the Northeast Advanced Vehicle Consortium in Boston and Westart/CALSTART of Pasadena, California.

"By funding this program, Congress has allowed the transit industry to continue its long tradition as an innovator in the areas of alternative fuels and technology," said FTA Administrator James Simpson. "Through this national program, we can consolidate - and accelerate - the process of making hydrogen buses commercially feasible as cleaner, more energy efficient alternatives".

Simpson said that Hydrogen fuel cell buses offer zero-emissions transportation in some of the nation's most congested corridors, reducing potential health risks to the general population. Also, transit officials expect that clean, quiet, energy-efficient transit buses will enhance the attractiveness of public transportation, lead to increased ridership, and move the nation toward energy independence.

As one of the champions for the new program Congresswoman Mary Bono (R-CA) stated "The expansion and use of fuel cell and hydrogen technology is a necessary and innovative step to significantly reduce dependency on foreign oil. Americans and Congress must continue to support legislation that strengthens any efforts to diversify our nation's energy portfolio."

Another champion for the program, Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) said "Today, I welcome the progress that the FTA is making with the award of grants under the National Fuel Cell Bus Program. Fuel cells are an important enabling technology that has the potential to reduce America's dependency on fossil fuels. This program will help accelerate the successful commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell propulsion for the transportation industry."

Simpson noted that SunLine Transit, along with its research partners will receive $2.8 million to design and demonstrate 40-foot fuel cell buses, and to evaluate their performance in a hot desert climate. SunLine is also among those receiving $3.6 million to test the life expectancy of an existing line of fuel cell buses.

Another example on the East Coast includes the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). WMATA and with its research partners will receive $8.4 million for advanced bus development and in-service evaluation of hybrid fuel cell buses.

The multimillion dollar national grant announcement was made possible through the National Fuel Cell Bus Technology Development Program, which was part of the recently enacted Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).

DENVER – A small Colorado company is working on a way to fulfill President Bush's alternative energy agenda by designing the next generation, hydrogen-powered bus.

The engineers at Mobile Energy Solutions are hoping to complete the model soon for a new bus powered by batteries which would be re-charged with hydrogen fuel cells.

"We believe in this project," said Phil Sweesy, vice-president of Mobile Energy Solutions. "We really want to see it come to fruition. We think it will help the country, and it's important to us."

The engineers codenamed the project "Origin One" because the buses are designed from the ground up and are supposed to be more fuel-efficient, reliable and affordable.

One of the problems the engineers faced while building their prototype was heat from on-board batteries.

"We're looking at putting a water-cooling loop into these systems that we developed for the U.S. Air Force on their hybrid vehicle program," said Robert Schmitz from Sabre Engineering.

Despite the fact that Mobile Energy Solutions is a small company they designed and built RTD's Mall Shuttle, which became one of the most successful hybrid electric bus systems in the world.

"I told my wife last night that I've never been happier in my life than being a part, a small part, of changing an entire industry in the United States," said Dale Hill, CEO of Mobile Energy Solutions.

The assembly plan for the hydrogen buses is planned to possibly be on the Coors technology site in Golden. The first hydrogen powered bus is due to roll off the assembly line in spring of 2007.

Officials in New Haven, Conn., have already ordered two of the hydrogen-powered buses and negotiations are under way with seven other U.S. transit agencies and three foreign countries.

In the spring of 2001 Dale Hill stood on the roof of a business at the Tabor Center and surveyed the largest hybrid electric bus fleet in the world moving effortlessly along 20 blocks of the 16th Street Mall.

He had started the company that designed and built the 36 shuttle vehicles and he knew he was getting a glimpse of the future – the beginnings of a shift in transportation vehicles across America to more fuel-efficient technologies.

When Hill and investors differed over the direction of the company he moved on to other projects that eventually took him to France. But he didn't stray far from the ideas and concepts of the mall project. In 2004, he launched a new company, Mobile Energy Solutions, that has already snagged a government grant to build fuel-cell hybrid buses for the Yale University town of New Haven, Conn.

"We are developing fuel cell buses to meet the country's goal to transition to a domestic fuel (hydrogen) that is emissions free," Hill said. "We have to start developing this today to accumulate some years of operation – build a few units put them out there running everyday to identify weak links in the chain."

Hill, who lives in Evergreen, is the chief executive officer of Mobile Energy Solutions, based in Conifer, and his partner Phil Sweesy, also of Evergreen is the vice president of operations. Sweesy once worked for Northrop Grumman Corp., a global defense company headquartered in Los Angeles, and played a part in the manufacturing and prototyping projects such as B-2 Spirit strategic bomber and combat F/A-18 Hornet. Hill, who is an engineer and also has a manufacturing background, manufactured double-decker glass dome touring rail cars, and designed and manufactured aluminum end-dump trailers earning an industry award for the most significant contribution to the trucking industry in 1992.

The duo met through a mutual friend and they worked together for a brief time when Sweesy joined the Denver mall project. The mall shuttles carry twice the number of passengers as conventional buses while producing only 1/60th the pollution of a comparably sized bus, Hill said. They incorporate a 70 horsepower 4-cylnder Ford engine and run on natural gas.

"The mall project is the largest and most successful alternative-fueled hybrid electric bus fleet in the world," Hill said. "The buses have carried approximately 100 million passengers and logged more than 2 million miles in the last five years."

For the Connecticut project, the Federal Transportation Administration was looking for someone with a success record in developing advanced bus fleet technology, Hill said. His company competed with one other before securing the project that will take several years to complete. They will produce two types of hydrogen fueled hybrid-electric transit vehicles and two on-site hydrogen production storage and dispensing systems as well as implement diagnostic maintenance and training platforms for the vehicles and fueling systems. One vehicle will be powered by a fuel cell the other a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine. And the project will ultimately include the construction of a new transit facility. Besides being emissions efficient, the new designs will get about three times the gas mileage of other buses that average 3 to 4 miles per gallon.

"There are people working on fuel cell buses – taking large fuel cells and adapting them to large buses – but we came out of the box and developed a vehicle that is designed specifically for the technology," Sweesy explained.

Hill and Sweesy are "integrators" by their own definition.

"We visualize, conceptualize the vehicle, and the engineers figure out how to make it real," Sweesy said.

Their four-person team incorporates the expertise of additional engineers and other associates and they have already begun plans to build a manufacturing plant in Golden to accommodate the Connecticut project. Hill and Sweesy believe that in 10 to 15 years a large percentage of the public transit system will utilize fuel cell technology and they are excited to be a part of that future.

"We have worked outside the box for so many years we don't even know where the box is anymore," Sweesy said.

For more information about their project, visit www.mobileenergysolutions.com.

New Haven, CT – Public transportation will have a cleaner, more efficient and user-friendly future thanks to a project recently announced in New Haven. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds flowing to the Greater New Haven Transit District (GNHTD) could prove to be a tremendous boon to the city of New Haven, the state of Connecticut and to public transportation nation-wide.

Just days after the U.S. Congress passed an extensive and comprehensive energy bill that will provide funding for many energy related improvements in the coming years, Donna Carter, Executive Director of GNHTD awarded its Advanced Transportation System Development Program to an Integrated Product Development (IPD) Team led by the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) of Des Plaines, IL. The project is part of the National Hydrogen Initiative administered by the FTA.

Ms. Carter stated, “This concept is a complete Advanced Transportation System ‘solutions package’ for hydrogen-powered transit operations unlike any undertaken previously. The GNHTD, the FTA and Connecticut Congressional Delegation have long had a vision for bringing a new approach to transit to life. Such a concept has never been explored in this manner until now, and we are excited to see it finally under way. GNHTD is proud to be a part of expanding and diversifying the nation’s energy technology to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.”

This award is for Phase I of the projected multi-year program, which aims to simultaneously design, and deliver two hydrogen fueled hybrid-electric transit vehicles, and two on-site hydrogen production, storage and dispensing systems, as well as the design and implementation of innovative diagnostic, maintenance and training platforms for the vehicles and fueling systems. The most advanced technologies will be used in the production of the new type of transit vehicle, including electric drives, battery technologies, fuel cells, high pressure tanks, composites and wireless communications. Ultimately the project will also encompass the design and construction of a new, state-of-the-art transit facility for GNHTD.

According to Lou Lautman of Gas Technology Institute, and Team Leader of the project, this Advanced Transportation System is based on two hydrogen fueled battery dominant, hybrid-electric transit vehicles, the first of which will be powered by a fuel cell, the second by an internal combustion engine. The vehicles in this program will be supported by two state-of-the-art hydrogen generation and fueling systems, one utilizing a natural gas-based reformation technique and one a compressor-less electrolysis technology.

Carla York, CEO of Innovation Drive, Inc, one of several team members responsible for achieving the objectives of the project, stated, “By addressing the needs of transportation R&D in a Team approach, all areas required for the successful development, implementation and operation of these advanced technologies can be addressed by working together to achieve the maximum benefit to public transportation. One particular area is that the program will include a revolutionary approach to maintenance management, data collection and training. But, unlike many previous R&D projects, this program includes a unique plan for marketing, advertising and commercialization of the systems included in the program. The Team will take the concept of these combined technologies from the drawing board and/or the laboratory to the streets of New Haven and into the national marketplace.”

Dale Hill of Mobile Energy Solutions (MES) headquartered in Denver, Colorado will be responsible for designing, engineering, manufacturing and testing the new transit vehicles. “We are taking proven technologies to the next generation by utilizing the best and most dependable of each technology to generate a completely new concept vehicle. Our goal is to have the same or greater success with the New Haven project as the development team experienced with the 36 Denver 16th St. Mall CNG fueled hybrid-electric shuttle buses which have logged over two million miles, carrying over 100 million passengers in the last five years.”

Lee Grannis of Grannis Transportation Consulting in Bethany, CT, a consultant for GNHTD, has been a staunch advocate of the GNHTD Hydrogen Powered Vehicle System Program from its initial conception. “This is a unique and dynamic approach to transit research and development, addressing reductions in America’s dependence on foreign oil and mobile source emissions from the transportation sector,” he stated. “Gathered together are the leading industry experts in their respective fields who have undeniable records of success in on-time delivery and performance. The completion of this program will be a tremendous asset for Connecticut and a win-win situation for the people of New Haven, the environment because of the projected reductions in harmful emissions, and for public transportation throughout the nation.”

“Avālence is very proud to be part of the team selected to make the new state-of-the-art transit center for New Haven become a reality,” stated Deborah Moss, CEO. “The Avālence Hydrofiller will supply the ‘green’ hydrogen fuel for the hybrid-electric transit vehicles – to demonstrate to the public that it is possible to ride a vehicle that is totally emission free. This transit center will be an important showcase for the many advanced technologies that are redefining the future of transportation.”

David Mori commented, “Jakes Associates, Inc. is both pleased and excited to be assisting GNHTD in its pioneering efforts to introduce and successfully operate a new generation of hydrogen based transit technology. We look forward to continuing to make a value added contribution to the overwhelming success of this program through our unique background in alternative fuels engineering and procurement management activities.”

“This opportunity is unique in that it creates an environment for several highly skilled organizations to work together in cooperation with GNHTD and the FTA in an IPD Team environment to develop a ‘solutions package’ advanced transportation system that focuses on reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil in the transportation sector,” added Ty McCoy, Chairman of Innovation Drive.

The project Team includes GTI as the Lead Project Integrator and hydrogen reformation system developer, MES (with Sabre Engineering and CompositeTek) as the vehicle developer/builder, Hydrogenics as the fuel cell supplier, Connecticut-based Avālence as the electrolytic hydrogen system developer and installer of the renewable power supply, and Innovation Drive, Inc. to manage the marketing and public awareness, as well as team coordination, reporting and commercialization aspects the program.