A wide range of innovative technologies can cut carbon emissions from buses and provide a short-term payback at current fuel prices and subsidy levels, according to a new report prepared for the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership by Ricardo — a global, world-class, multi-industry consultancy for engineering, technology and project innovation.
The aim of the study was to identify a range of low-carbon fuels and technologies which can cost-effectively reduce well-to-wheel CO
2 emissions for urban buses in the UK. The report developed technology road-maps to illustrate when these technologies are likely to be ready for deployment into the bus market, focusing on the time-scales 2012-2020 and 2020-2050. The study also examined the wider role of the selected fuels and technologies for de-carbonising heavy goods vehicles.
The report focuses on a variety of promising vehicle and power-train technologies including ‘light-weighting’, battery electric and various hybrid architectures including diesel-electric, mechanical flywheel and hydraulic hybrids. The study also covered a range of alternative fuels, including compressed natural gas, bio-methane, hydro-treated vegetable oil, second-generation bio-diesel and hydrogen. Payback times for the selected technologies for both single- and double-deck vehicles were calculated both with and without current UK bus subsidies.
The study confirmed that a number of technologies (including full electrical hybrid) have the potential to cut bus CO
2 emissions by over 30%, but it showed that the most technically effective technologies can have high investment costs with payback periods as long as 20 years, so intervention in the form of subsidies or regulation is required to encourage their implementation.
The full report can be downloaded from the Ricardo
www.ricardo.com or Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership
www.lowcvp.org.uk Web sites.