TCO assessment of fuel versus electric heating for urban electric bus systems

摘要

This paper presents a comprehensive cost assessment model based on a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach for the currently most promising electric bus technologies, namely opportunity and overnight charging, taking operational and technology-related constraints into account. Therefor, the heating system as a potentially substantial energy consumer can significantly determine the electrification requirements. Thus, the cost assessment is conducted for different bus system configurations, respectively for a zero emission operation deploying a battery-powered heating system and a non-zero emission operation using a fuel-fired heating system, in order to quantify the impact on the system design. The results reveal that the electrification cost can be noticeably reduced for certain bus configurations by employing a fuel-fired heater.