March Updates from CHBC’s Development Specialist
During the course of the month of March, the following notable works were performed by Cory Shumaker. This summary includes information that would be found valuable for CHBC members.
Attended the CALSTART Clean Transportation Summit: California 2030 on March 26-27 in Sacramento, CA. The summary of the event is as follows:
On March 26-27, CALSTART hosted the Clean Transportation Summit; California 2030. The purpose of the event was to discuss the future of clean transportation and mobility in California as it drives to achieve greenhouse gas reduction goals set by the State. Matt Coldwell, Advisor for Janea Scott, CEC, stated that planning for zero emission vehicles requires multi-stakeholder discussions of holistic solutions, such as those discussed at the event. The question of how do we plan and deploy zero emission vehicles in the heavy duty market needs to be answered.
Donna DeMartino, General Manager and CEO, San Joaquin Regional Transit District stated their cost is $250,000 per charger at San Joaquin Regional Transit District and it costs them more to operate the electric buses than diesel buses. There is a great opportunity for zero emission vehicles in the medium and heavy-duty market with 400,000-500,000 trucks currently. Return to base fleets are where the first opportunities are. Orange EV is creating an electric yard hostler. The CARB HVIP program will cover the cost of parts of infrastructure up to $30,000 for equipment itself that does not include the cost of installation. For fuel cell heavy duty vehicles, in addition to the $300,000 per vehicle voucher, there is a $100,000 per vehicle voucher for a minimum of 5 vehicles per location that can be applied to the cost of hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
Matt Miyasato, SCAQMD stated that the duty cycle needs to match the technology used. Keith Leech, Proterra, talked about the delays in electrical infrastructure which can take up to two years after the funding has been secured. The desire by fleet customers is to have hydrogen or electric trucks leased on a per mile basis which could accelerate the adaptation with fleets. It should be noted that out of the 30 million registered vehicles in CA, 14.6 million are medium and heavy duty trucks with 97% of those commercially owned. Naveen Berry, SCAQMD, pointed out the limitation of H2 infrastructure with barriers such as lack of standards and funding to do some of the types of early demonstration projects.
John Mikulin, US EPA, stated the EPA wants to assist on the hydrogen infrastructure buildout through planning and forecasting hydrogen demand for the west coast.
Peter Christensen, CARB, said there are a tremendous number of opportunities today for different technologies, however previous experiences in fleets with underperforming engines have created a barrier of conception.
Janea Scott, CEC, talked about the growing importance for workforce training and how it’s a key component of the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program to make sure today’s workers are ready for the clean energy technology jobs of tomorrow. For infrastructure, the new CEC goal is 200 hydrogen stations by 2025 in California.
Tim Reeser, Lightning Systems, presented their all electric Ford Transit conversion with a hydrogen fuel cell option for 200 mile range, while battery only is 100 miles. Lightning Systems has developed EV platforms for Classes 4,5,6, and 7.
Tess Sicat, Branch Chief CARB, stated the Zero Emission Powertrain Certification will have Board consideration in July 2018, the Zero Emission Off-Road Freight Voucher Incentive will be added to HVIP with $40M for this year’s appropriation for early commercialization into the market and there is an Off-Road Advanced Technology Demonstration Development project. For more information see the CARB website.
There is an ongoing concern for disadvantaged communities and BAAQMD will be implementing a system to track the air quality levels to identify the impacted communities. It difficult for fleets to invest in near-zero emission solutions if zero emission solutions are the mandate in 10 years. Mike Whitlatch, UPS, talked about their experience with multiple zero emission technologies. “There’s not one solution and you’ll see that in our fleet, we use a variety of vehicle fuels. We have to roll miles at a cheaper fuel rate to recover that investment. There is no business case built on credits at UPS.”
Craig Scott, Toyota, talked about their fuel cell Class 8 truck currently running in the Port of Los Angeles hauling 80,000lb daily, mostly moving parts from ships to warehouses. The truck will eventually start performing port to railhead and to Ontario routes. Toyota has no plans to produce the truck quite yet. To fuel the truck, Toyota is building a new hydrogen facility on their property by FuelCell Energy to fill up to 20 trucks a day. 1 truck uses 75x more hydrogen than a Mirai.
Attended CAAP Implementation Stakeholder Advisory Meeting on March 29th in Long Beach, CA. The notes from this meeting are as follows:
On March 29th, 2018 the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach held an advisory meeting with stakeholders for the Clean Air Action Plan implementation strategy. The meeting was setup like a panel with representatives from the two ports. Mario Cordero, Executive Director of Port of Long Beach, welcomed the room and stated the desire to move to zero emissions. Chris Cannon, Director of Environmental Management, Port of Los Angles stated the mission of the advisory meeting is to engage in a dialog, talk about what they’re doing and get feedback. Heather Tomley, Director of Environmental Planning, stated both ports are working on feasibility assessment of trucks and cargo handling equipment. The emphasis is on infrastructure that needs to be built to meet zero emission targets. They are working with local, state, and federal agencies to identify sources of funds to meet the goals. CAAP Clean Truck Program Status:
- 2018 Zero/Near-Zero feasibility study will be completed
- 2019 Rate study completed
- 2019 CARB near-zero manufacturing study, and create a pilot heavy duty inspection program
- 2023 only zero and near zero trucks can register in PDTR
- 2035 only zero emission trucks can register in PDTR
PDTR registration fee will be exempt for zero and near zero trucks once CARB defines what “near-zero” is. The Clean Truck Rate Study will begin in summer 2018, estimated to be completed by 2Q 2019. There is a joint program with AQMD under development to encourage early adopters of near-zero emission trucks. A 50 to 100 near-zero emission truck pilot program deployment will be happening; looking for grant programs and ways to set it up based on different trucking companies and different duty cycles.
Port Truck Reservation System: Goal is to reduce turn times and improve efficiency by establishing appointments for all truck transactions at the terminals to work with existing terminal operating systems. Due to the concerns from natural gas trucks from years back there will be a demo of natural gas trucks this year, set up by Roush Trucks. They want to work with the port to create the demo program. There is concern about how the near-zero standard and definition will be set by CARB. A representative from a community organization stated that none of the public dollars should go to anything that’s not zero emission. “Near-zero” is not something the community wants to accept. Part of the CAAP is a feasibility assessment performed every 3 years on trucks and terminal equipment to determine if the goals can be reached by the dates in the plan. The focus is on yard tractors, top picks, RTGs, and heavy forklifts.
The Framework for Developing Feasibility Study document was released last year. The goal is to have zero emission CHE by 2030 and zero emission trucks by 2035. Tetra Tech will be performing the assessments. There will be 3rd party reviews performed by Starcrest Consulting, LLC, National Renewable Energy Lab and the TAP Advisory Committee. The timeline is a scooping document in Q1 2018 with outside reviews, research performed in Q2 2018 followed by outside reviews, a draft produced by Q4 2018 followed by a public comment period and outside reviews, final feasibility study will be completed by December 2018. Technical Viability will make sure the technologies meets or exceeds diesel and can get certified. Commercial Availability of production capability and have warranties will be considered. Operational Feasibility must meet minimum performance of at least two shifts. Looking for maintenance and operator feedback. Also need to have long term market support. Infrastructure Availability looking at if/when, and costs. Economic Considerations of fuel, direct costs, incentive funding, workforce impacts, cost effectiveness, economic impacts. One of the goals is to see what the costs will be into the future. There’s concern that these zero emission vehicles may not be economically viable long term after incentive funding stops.
An update on demonstrations was presented by the two TAP managers; TAP is managed by Rose Siengsubcharti, POLB and Teresa Pisano, POLA. Demos of near-zero emission and zero emission technologies including trucks, vessel energy efficiency, vessel-at-berth, harbor craft, near zero emission switcher locomotive, and zero emission terminal equipment. Vessels are still a major source of air pollution. Switcher locomotive demo is NG with batteries to operate zero emission. Will be releasing a call for projects for 2018 within the next two weeks. POLB received $9.75M from CEC for 12 battery yard trucks, convert 9 RTGs to electric, and 4 LNG trucks to plug in hybrid for zero emission operation. POLB received $5M for a microgrid project on energy resiliency by solar and batteries demonstrated at POLB Command and Control Center. Also includes microgrid training for all CA seaports. POLA Green Omni Terminal Project at Pasha is 4 battery yard trucks, 2 battery on road trucks, 2 electric forklifts, 1 electric top handler, and rooftop solar with battery to operate terminal in event of outage. POLA Everport Advanced CHE is 20 low NOx yard tractors, 8 battery yard tractors, and 2 battery top picks all with charging infrastructure. More info can be found at cleanairactionplan.org for news, plan and supporting documents, and technology reports. Harbor Communities need job opportunities for these new technologies. They want the priority to be human operated equipment and drayage trucks. Particulate matter and sulfur are the cancer causing agents that need to be focused on in addition to greenhouse gases. CAAP Implementation Stakeholder Advisory meetings will be held quarterly in June, September and December.