The Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) has recently completed the Phase I activities of its Flywheel Energy Storage Program involving an analysis of the operational requirements and the conceptual design of flywheel energy storage vehicles for transit service. Flywheel energy storage systems are being proposed as a means of reducing the energy requirements of fixed-route, multi-stop, urban transit vehicles. The Phase I studies have paved the groundwork for the succeeding program phase which include the design, fabrication, test, and evaluation of prototype flywheel vehicle systems for demonstrations in transit service. As part of the overall program, UMTA has requested the Transportation Systems Center (TSC) to conduct an independent assessment of the life cycle costs and the potential market applications of flywheel storage vehicles within the urban transit industry. This report documents the results of these analyses. It examines the economic viability and the potential market applications of these proposed concepts within urban transit operations. The report presents a description of the structure, the approach, and the assumptions of the analysis; defines the design characteristics, the system capital costs, and the annual recurring operations/maintenance costs associated with the conventional diesel bus, the trolly bus, and the three flywheel-powered vehicle systems considered in the study; describes the results of the life-cycle analysis and the sensitivity of these results due to variations of key assumed input variables; and discusses the potential demand and the market applications of flywheel energy storage vehicles within transit service operations.
Analysis of Life-Cycle Costs and Market Applications of Flywheel Energy-Storage Transit Vehicles
1979
180 pages
Report
No indication
English
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