Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

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Electric buses were seen as a joke at an industry conference in Belgium seven years ago when the Chinese manufacturer BYD Co. showed an early model.

“Everyone was laughing at BYD for making a toy,” recalled Isbrand Ho, the Shenzhen-based company’s managing director in Europe. “And look now. Everyone has one.”


Suddenly, buses with battery-powered motors are a serious matter with the potential to revolutionize city transport—and add to the forces reshaping the energy industry. With China leading the way, making the traditional smog-belching diesel behemoth run on electricity is starting to eat away at fossil fuel demand.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ntent=business

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Sea of solar panels turns Mexican desert green


Mexico won plaudits from environmentalists in 2015 when it became the first emerging country to announce its emissions reduction targets for the United Nations climate accord, ambitiously vowing to halve them by 2050.

To get there, it is tendering clean-energy projects in which private companies produce, sell and purchase electricity on an open market.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunda...2?profile=1056

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Jamaica now powers aircraft at the gate with solar


SOLAR facilities designed to provide electricity for Terminal Gate Number One at Norman Manley International Airport (NMIA) in Kingston were on Tuesday handed over to the management by representatives from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)/United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Global Environment Facility.

Jamaica was selected for the pilot of a project dubbed 'Solar-at-Gate', following the country's submission of an environmental state action plan.

Under the project, there has been the successful installation of gate electrification equipment at the island's two main international airports, and a solar powered-generation facility at the NMIA.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...9?profile=1056

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Jamaica to introduce electric public passenger buses

Jamaica is to introduce electric buses, starting with 45 units to be added to the fleet of the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC).

This was disclosed by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen during his Throne Speech at today’s ceremonial opening of parliament.

“The projected benefits of implementing this initiative are quite significant and include energy saving, environmental preservation and the reduction of the national fuel bill,” Allen said.

He said the government is on a move to expand the JUTC’s fleet so as to sustain daily bus deployment and to improve service delivery.

Last September, Energy Minister Fayval Williams indicated that she wants Jamaica to seriously consider introducing electric buses to the public transport system.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/n...assenger-buses

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Editorial | Before JUTC buys electric buses

Lots of people, like this newspaper, will be excited by the idea of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) adding electric buses to its fleet, as the Government has promised for the new fiscal year. Forty-five are to be acquired, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen disclosed in last week’s Throne Speech.

Novelty aside, Sir Patrick not only dangled the green attributes of electric vehicles, therefore their benefit to the environment, but raised the prospect of savings on fuel, which would be good for the finances of the company as well as the national economy. This optimism notwithstanding, the JUTC’s managers need to provide the company’s shareholders and taxpayers with further particulars about their plan, including the feasibility analysis upon which it rests. There is also much more to explain about the company.

The stated-owned bus company operates in the Kingston Metropolitan Region, which primarily means the Jamaica capital and the urban areas of the administratively adjoined parish of St Andrew, as well as the large municipalities of Portmore and Spanish Town in St Catherine, to the west. When the JUTC was formed more than two decades ago, the hope was that it would inspire order in a chaotic public transport system. Its success, in that respect, has been limited, even as taxpayers carried a heavy cost for the company’s operation.

The problem for now is that while battery technology has improved over the last decade, the power source doesn’t offer the same fuel density as diesel, on which commuter buses generally run.

Further, most evaluations suggest that loaded electric buses may struggle on relatively hilly routes, in hot climates and in urban environments, where travel demand significant numbers of stops and starts, rather than longer highway drives.

If the JUTC is certain that it has resolved these issues and that it won’t import electric vehicles unsuitable for Jamaican conditions, then we welcome the BEBs.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/c...electric-buses