By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Clallam Transit is taking a hard look at purchasing zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell buses as part of the future of their transit fleet.
The leadership team has selected Zen Clean Energy Solutions of Vancouver, BC in Canada to conduct a feasibility study at a cost of $135,000. General Manager Kevin Gallacci says the money is well spent.
“You know, it’s money well spent because a hydrogen fuel station could be upwards of six million dollars, hydrogen buses right now are about 1.2 million dollars apiece. So, before we venture into that direction, we want to make darn sure it’s right for us. There’s the probability of procuring our own station, building our own station. But there’s also programs out there where you can lease a station. But we want all the information so that staff and the Board can decide if this is the direction that we want to go in the future.”
Governor Inslee’s mandate to have public transit fleets transitioning to zero emissions by 2030 forces Gallacci and the Transit Board to do some serious thinking about how to achieve that. Electric buses are certainly in the discussion, but Gallacci says they don’t have the range on a daily basis for many of his routes, and powering up an entire fleet of electric buses every night is a much bigger proposition than you might think.
“We’ve already done some homework on electric buses and electric bus charging. And we’ve got some grants out for infrastructure and buses for that on a small scale. But as we move towards zero emission vehicles, I don’t know that every bus in our fleet, if there’s enough electricity actually to, you know, power those overnight. But again, we all have to be careful to not overload the the grid. So I, you know, I just don’t think everybody’s going to be able to have electric vehicles, at some point time, unless infrastructure changes to support all that.”
Ultimately, Gallacci believes the best strategy is going to be diversification.
“You know, I’m all about diversity, too. So I think if we have a combination of electric, hydrogen electric, some diesels that are running bio diesel, and propane, which we have in our paratransit fleet, I prefer to go that direction so we’re not dependent on one source to power vehicles, if that source becomes unavailable.”