Secondary Author(s)
Brooker, R. Paul; Raissi, Ali
Report Number
FSEC-CR-2060-17
URL
http://publications.energyresearch.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FSEC-CR-2060-17.pdf
Keywords
Electric Vehicles
Abstract
Pure electric buses (EBs) offer an alternative fuel for the nation's transit bus systems. To evaluate EBs in a transit setting, this project investigated the five electric bus fleet of the StarMetro transit system of the city of Tallahassee, FL. For the study, the implementing strategy, route distances and timings, charging times, fuel economies, impact of chargers, and maintenance and operational characteristics were analyzed. The results were compared to a baseline five diesel bus fleet. The results showed that even with a four-fold improvement in fuel efficiency, the operational costs of electric buses were only 10% lower than that for diesel buses. The results showed that for EBs, the electricity cost due to demand charges was identified to be a major contributor to the electricity cost. To mitigate the high demand charges, researchers developed a method that can reduce the demand charge by optimizing the charging strategy. By using the optimized charging schedule, the demand charges can be reduced by up to 45%.
Date Published
3-22-2017
Subjects
Electric Vehicles
STARS Citation
Florida Solar Energy Center and Qin, Nan, "Electric Bus Systems - A Case Study And Optimization Study" (2017). FSEC Energy Research Center®. 83.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fsec/83
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