photos: green wombat
PG&E has put California’s first hybrid diesel-electric service truck on the streets as part of pilot program to cut greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants while reducing fuel bills. The nationwide effort involves 14 utilities – from PG&E (PCG) and Southern California Edison (EIX) on the West Coast to American Electric Power (AEP) in the heartland to Duke Energy (DUK) and FPL (FPL) on the East Coast. Hydro Quebec also is participating in the truck trial. This morning a 16-ton "bucket truck" silently rolled up to a plaza in front of PG&E’s San Francisco headquarters. The International truck can run up to 35 miles an hour on its electric drive train made by Eaton, according to Efrain Ornelas, PG&E senior program manager for clean air transportation. Batteries also power the bucket that lifts workers up to power lines. In a conventional bucket truck that equipment is powered by the vehicle’s diesel engine, which is left idling and spewing carbon while the repair work is being performed. "Normally when one of these trucks is working in a neighborhood it’s so loud you can’t hear yourself talk," said Ornelas as the bucket quietly lifted a technician into the air.
According to PG&E, the hybrid bucket truck will slash fuel consumption up to 60 percent, saving up to $5,500 a year in diesel costs. The year-long trial will help the truck’s manufacturer tweak the vehicle’s final design. Ornelas said the electric lift can operate for about two hours on battery power, which should let PG&E customers get some sleep when trucks are dispatched in the dead of night to fix downed power lines. Meanwhile, as Green Wombat wrote earlier, New Jersey utility Public Service Electric and Gas (PEG) plans to replace a quarter of its 5,000-vehicle fleet with diesel-electric hybrids and biodiesel-powered trucks.
Green Wombat 
Leave a Reply