Pasadena, Calif.-based Calstart has launched a $24 million program to test out new and existing fuel cell technologies on transit buses in the state to help commercialize the use of hydrogen systems.

Backed by $12 million from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration, the balance of the funding is made up by the companies involved in the five different projects, including UTC Power, part of Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies (NYSE: UTX), London's BAE Systems (OTC: BAESY), and US Hybrid in Torrance, Calif.

Calstart is the California operating division of Weststart, a non-profit transportation technologies consortium.

Bill Van Amburg, Sr. VP at Calstart, said his group put together a portfolio approach to the projects.

"Some of them need to be directly fuel cell-powered today, and let's really push the limits on reliability and lifecycle and other issues that we want to extend in fuel cells," he said. "And then, kind of an evolutionary path, which is combining a smaller fuel cell with maybe a larger battery pack."

"And then the whole components, the enabling technologies that we need just for all these things to function better."

Van Amburg said some of the component projects will likely take 12 to 18 months, with some of the other projects going for two to three years, or as long as four years.

The projects include the development of a bus for the SunLine Transit Agency in Coachella Valley.

The bus will have a fuel cell system from UTC, a lithium-ion energy storage system, a lightweight electric motive drive system from Poway, Calif.'s ISE, and a bus design from Winnipeg, Manitoba-based New Flyer Industries (TSX: NFI.UN).

Take a look at a SunLine hydrogen-powered bus here >> 

BAE Systems will be working on a hybrid bus that links a fuel cell, a conventional engine and battery energy sources in one system.

It will use a fuel cell from Mississauga, Ontario's Hydrogenics (Nasdaq: HYGS) and BAE's HybriDrive propulsion system in a hybrid bus from Orion Bus, a division of Daimler (NYSE: DAI).

The project aims to double the fuel efficiency of a diesel bus in an affordable package.

San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency will be running the hybrid bus.

On the components side, US Hybrid will be working on an integrated auxiliary module, and a fuel cell bi-directional converter.

Tackling these projects for use in transit buses gets around some of the major drawbacks of hydrogen technology in transportation.

With larger vehicles, the size and the price of the fuel cells isn't as great an issue as it is with passenger cars. Van Amburg said stationary fuel cells are about two orders of magnitude higher in price than what would be needed to integrate them under the hood of a car.

"In the transit arena, certainly the price points are maybe one order of magnitude off, so it's kind of on that slope you'd have to go through to get toward automotive," he said.

Also holding back the development of hydrogen cars is the lack of a network of hydrogen stations, but with transit or other centrally refueled fleets it's not as big of an issue.

But there are some major hurdles. He pointed out that a transit bus has a 12-year life, and normally the rebuild on a diesel engine is about halfway through that life.

"Well, fuel cells have not had lives anywhere near that yet," he said.

But he said new, well integrated systems are starting to be made that might be able to get out to the four, five, or six year mark in the near future.

Van Amburg said his group hopes to see the technologies move into meaningful service over the next three to seven years.

"In early experiments that we've been involved in a couple of years ago, often people really wanted to ride in the fuel cell bus, and let the other ones go by," he said.

"It's different, it's interesting, but it's also very quiet, and there's no smells or emissions that come out of it at all. It's a different experience to ride in a bus like that."