Promoted content: Replacing Diesel with Hybrid Power in Buses

While the cost of fuel increases, government subsidies for fuel decrease, and pressure to clean up bus emissions mounts. Bus operators are facing huge regulations to clean up their fleets. Some of the largest fleet owners in the United Kingdom run more than 7,500 buses, each with a lifetime of more than 25 years. One of the only viable solutions to quickly make a meaningful difference to fleet fuel consumption is to retrofit existing vehicles with cleaner propulsion methods.

Using National Instruments CompactRIO and LabVIEW system-design software Vantage Power Ltd is developing a hybrid powertrain that can be retrofitted into existing double-decker buses and can demonstrate a 40% fuel savings in real-world operating conditions.

The Main components

A typical hybrid bus powertrain consists of an electric drive motor; a power converter; a lithium-ion battery; a generator; and an engine. In the layout shown in Figure 1, a series hybrid creates energy in series with the engine whilst being mechanically decoupled from the wheels. In this scenario, each of the main components in the energy conversion chain needs to be controlled so that their power output matches the requirement of the following component.