As the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) prepares to roll out brand new, all-electric buses, the transit agency is teaming up with Prospect Silicon Valley and Bay Area tech companies to pilot a cutting-edge system that will manage charging those buses and track energy consumption while reducing the impact on the state’s electricity grid.
VTA recently purchased five Proterra battery-powered electric buses, expected to be in service within a month, with plans to add five more in 2019.
Pilot Project
This four-year “Vehicle to Grid Integration” project will be closely followed by the public transit industry and other transportation providers, as they begin planning for their own fleet transitions to electric buses. The project will reduce costs for charging electric busees by minimizing the amount of energy consumed during peak periods, and as the site energy consumption drops, off at night, increase the charge rate on the buses thus minimizing the impact of bus charging on the grid.
“This project will provide a critical cornerstone towards moving our entire fleet to zero-emission vehicles,” said Nuria Fernandez, VTA general manager and CEO. “We are excited to be partnering with nationally recognized industry experts on this important project that will advance the state’s strategic electrification goals.”
Oakland-based software company Kisensum developed a system that optimizes the charging of of the electric buses to ensure minimal stress on California’s electric grid. The Kisensum software takes into account the site energy usage, time of day and the amount of energy needed to charge the buses. It charges buses in a “smart” way, only providing the charge a bus needs, reducing stress on the state’s electric grid.
Clever Device software tracks the amount of energy the buses use while they’re in operation and provides the dispatcher real-time information about the vehicle energy usage and predicting the amount of energy needed to complete the day’s work plan for the bus.
The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), in Denver Colorado, is driving the research on this effort. It will provide a needs analysis, using data recorders and modeled operating scenarios, including dwell times, route length and energy costs. They will analyze the duty cycle requirements and energy services potential to optimize fleet operations and energy services software algorithms for a system design. That includes assessing VTA 5 to 15-year electrical plans for all operations and providing substantive recommendations to optimize power usage and cost. Finally, the NREL will provide measurement and verification. It will assess energy services and bus performance, including meeting duty-cycle requirements, expected vs actual conditions, and analyze and explain variances.
