Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategies of Series Hybrid City Buses

Abstract

With ever growing concerns on energy crisis and environmental issues, alternative clean and energy efficient vehicles are favoured for public applications. Internal combustion engine(ICE)-powered series hybrid buses and fuel cell (FC) hybrid buses, respectively as a near-term and long-term strategy, have a very promising application prospect. The series hybrid vehicle utilizes an ICE/FC as the main power source and a battery/ultra capacity (UC) as the auxiliary power source. The main power source supplies the average vehicle power, and the auxiliary power source functions during accelerating and decelerating. Because the battery/UC fulfills the transient power demand fluctuations, the ICE/FC can work steadly. Thus, the durability of the fuel cell stack could be improved compared with a pure FC-powered bus in the FC series hybrid bus. And the PM and NOx can be greatly lowered in the ICE series hybrid bus compared with a traditional city bus. Besides, the ability of the energy storage source to recover braking energy enhances the fuel economy greatly.