First fuel cell hybrid bus hits the road in Connecticut

The first fuel cell hybrid bus in New England has entered service in Hartford, Connecticut with CTTRANSIT, the state-owned regional bus service. United Technologies division UTC Power is providing the bus and the first two years of service for the bus that is running on a downtown Hartford route. The hydrogen refueling station is located at the UTC Power headquarters in South Windsor. The Federal Transit Authority has given the Greater Hartford Transit District a $2.9 million grant to get the program running and build the necessary infrastructure.

UTC Power is also partnering with AC Transit of Oakland, California, Belgian bus manufacturer Van Hool and ISE Corp who does the hybrid electric and fuel cell integration. UTC Power is providing their PureMotion fuel cell system that has also been installed in buses in the United States, Spain, Italy and Belgium. The forty-foot bus has 50kg of compressed hydrogen in roof-mounted tanks for the 120kW fuel cell. A pair of 170kW motors provide the drive and the bus has a range of about 250-300 miles. The bus will eventually expand to other routes in the Hartford area to evaluate the performance the full range of transit service performance.

[Source: UTC Power, thanks to Tom for the tip]