October 12, 2007
Below please find our Solicitation Notice for the Generation III Fuel Cell Bus Integration project.
Solicitation Announcement
Fuel Cell Bus Integration
Georgetown University (GU) will issue a Solicitation for Proposals on October 22, 2007 to integrate and test a state-of-the-art methanol fuel cell system on a heavy-duty electric transit bus platform. Under a grant from the Federal Transit Administration, GU launched the current fuel cell bus project in 2006. In Phase I of the project, GU contracted with industry to develop the methanol fuel cell system. The solicitation to be issued will initiate Phase II to contract for the integration and test of the new system on a transit bus. The fuel cell bus will be demonstrated and evaluated in route service at one or more U.S. transit agencies.
Companies with experience in transit and/or electric drive system integration are invited to contact GU to learn more about this project and discuss their qualifications, and to request a copy of the solicitation. Contact the GU Fuel Cell Bus Program Manager, Charles Pritzlaff, by phone (202-687-4503) or email (cpp23@georgetown.edu).
August 8, 2007
Below please find our Pre-Solicitation Notice for the upcoming Generation III Fuel Cell Bus Integration project.
Under a grant from the Federal Transit Administration, Georgetown University (GU) is developing through contracts with industry a state-of-the-art methanol-fueled fuel cell system. Later this year, GU plans to issue a competitive solicitation to industry to integrate and test this new fuel cell system on a heavy-duty hybrid electric transit bus platform for ultimate demonstration and evaluation in route service at a U.S. transit agency. Companies with experience in transit and/or electric drive system integration are invited to contact GU to learn more about this project and discuss their qualifications.
Contact the GU Fuel Cell Bus Program Manager, Charles Pritzlaff, by phone (202-687-4503) or email (cpp23@georgetown.edu).
Please refer to the
Generation III Project page for more information on the methanol fuel cell system under development for use in this Fuel Cell Bus Integration.
August 25, 2006
The
Generation III page has been expanded to provide more details on the project, including information on the methanol fuel cell system currently under development in Phase I.
June 7, 2006
All of our current fuel cell bus brochures are now available for download. The brochures are in PDF format and reading or printing them requires the use of a PDF reader program such as
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Georgetown University Advanced Vehicle DevelopmentA general brochure giving a solid overview of the Fuel Cell Bus Program, including information on all three generations of buses.
(1.9 MB)
The Georgetown/UTC Fuel Cell Bus - In DepthA brochure providing more technical detail on the Generation II UTC Bus.
(1.7 MB)
The Georgetown X-1 Fuel Cell Bus - In DepthA brochure providing more technical detail on the Generation II Ballard X1 Bus.
(1.6 MB)
March 24, 2006
We are pleased to formally announce the start of the
Generation III Fuel Cell Bus project. Georgetown is working in partnership with EPRI, ZSW, and NuCellSys toward development of a next-generation methanol fuel cell. The full release is below.
March 24, 2006 - Georgetown University (GU) announces that a team led by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has won the contract to design, develop, and fabricate a fuel cell power plant operating on methanol as a subsystem for a next generation, heavy-duty transit bus. Other team members are the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW - Zentrum für Sonnenenergie und Wasserstoff-Forschung, Baden-Württemberg) and NuCellSys GmbH.
The power plant to be developed under this program will be a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) system capable of approximately 60 kW (80 hp) net output. The system will be fueled by methanol, and will utilize a low-temperature steam reformer to convert the methanol into a clean, hydrogen-rich gas on demand. The reformer will be a third generation system designed with emphasis on simplicity and low manufacturing costs. The resulting fuel cell system will be quick-responding, compact, and lightweight.
This program takes advantage of the team's knowledge and experience in hybrid electric vehicles, methanol fuel cell systems, and fuel cell design and testing. EPRI, a nonprofit organization at the forefront of energy and environmental research, is leading a collaborative program to research, develop, and demonstrate plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. ZSW, a nonprofit institute located in Ulm, Germany, has extensive experience in research and development of fuel cells and other alternative energy technologies. NuCellSys GmbH (formerly XCELLSiS) is a joint venture owned by DaimlerChrysler and Ford and is a world leader in developing automotive fuel cell systems, including several previous generations of methanol fuel cell systems and vehicles. NuCellSys previously developed the PEMFC system for the second generation GU bus and the methanol fuel cell system for the DaimlerChrysler NeCar 5 passenger car, which set a record for fuel cell vehicles when it was driven across the United States from San Francisco to Washington, DC in 2002.
The GU Fuel Cell Transit Bus Program is funded under a grant from the Federal Transit Administration. To date, this program has developed five fuel cell powered transit buses: three 30-foot Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell (PAFC) buses and two 40-foot buses. One 40-foot bus is powered by a PAFC power plant and the other by a PEMFC power plant. All of these vehicles are fueled by methanol and are series hybrid electric buses with traction batteries for energy storage.
For more information on the Georgetown University Fuel Cell Bus Program, visit http://fuelcellbus.georgetown.edu/. For background information on the partner companies, visit http://www.epri.com/, http://www.zsw-bw.de/en/, and http://www.nucellsys.com/.
The complete University press release is available here:
http://explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=13777.
November 29, 2005
Georgetown is pleased to welcome Charlie Pritzlaff to the Advanced Vehicle Development team as Program Manager. Mr. Pritzlaff is a retired U.S. Air Force officer with over 35 years of experience in engineering and program management. To read more, please visit our
Program Executives page.
January 14, 2005
We have begun the initial work on the
Generation III Fuel Cell Bus Development Program. More information will be available soon.
April 21, 2004
We are pleased to announce the completion of the methanol from coal study authored by researchers at the University of Florida. Both the full paper and a one-page summary are available for download below.
The study investigated overall future costs for various fuel options for fuel cell vehicles. The costs for the investigated sources of hydrogen for the fuel cell vehicles were projected for the year 2020, based on factors such as feedstock supply and demand, fuel production methods, transportation, storage, and taxes. A major conclusion of this study is that methanol produced from coal, reformed into hydrogen on-board a fuel cell vehicle, is likely to be the least expensive of the fuels considered.
An Investigation of the Feasibility of Coal-Based Methanol for Application in Transportation Fuel Cell Systems, April 2004.
Download the
full report (118 pages, 767 kb).
Read a
one-page overview of the report (79 kb).
March 30, 2004
Two important papers were published in recent months that are of interest to anyone who is following the studies and debates on hydrogen as a transportation fuel and the "hydrogen economy."
- In February, the National Academy of Engineering released The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities, Costs, Barriers, and R&D Needs. This report thoroughly examines the barriers that must be overcome to realize a hydrogen economy, and identifies the specific technological and economic challenges associated with using hydrogen as a transportation fuel. The entire paper is available for online reading and printing here.
- In March, The Hydrogen Initiative was published by the American Physical Society. This report, available for download here, studies the large gaps between current hydrogen technology and future technology necessary to make hydrogen a competitive option for consumers. Specifically, the production, storage, and use of hydrogen are discussed. One of the key recommendations of this report is to encourage funding and research of possible "bridge" technologies, which may be necessary to fill the gap between current technology and any future hydrogen economy.
Our program here at Georgetown has also funded the
University of Florida to examine the possibility and implications of using methanol produced from coal in future fuel cell vehicles in the U.S. This study, titled
An Investigation of the Feasibility of Coal-Based Methanol for Application in Transportation Fuel Cell Systems, will be completed and published in April.