ATCEMS Ambulances Go Solar

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From an Austin-Travis County (TX) EMS press release:

ATCEMS Ambulances Go Solar

Written by Warren Hassinger

Monday, 22 November 2010 06:38

ATCEMS Ford F450 Ambulance Rollout

Monday November 22, 2010

Texas EMS Conference

Austin Convention Center

500 East Cesar Chavez Exhibit Hall Booth 200

(4th street entrance)

Conference Floor opens at 11 a.m.

Press Conference starts at 11:15 a.m

Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) contribution to this year's Texas EMS Conference will include the rollout of a new Ford F450 ambulance design. Improvements to the F450 ambulance are significant and include: reduced vehicle cost, added safety features for paramedic and patients, greater ease of entrance and egress because of a lower vehicle profile, improved fuel mileage, and significant reductions in Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions.

ATCEMS will be able to obtain an overall 47% improvement in miles-per-gallon – first by moving to the more fuel efficient Ford F450 chassis, then by reducing "Engine Idle Time" with the addition of solar panels. "Engine Idle Time" at the hospital accounts for 560 gallons of fuel use per vehicle / per year. With the overall fuel efficiency increases over the entire ambulance fleet, ATCEMS can reduce its annualized fuel costs by more than $160,000.00.

ATCEMS will be able to obtain an overall 31.2% reduction in ambulance carbon dioxide emissions – a total reduction of 14.2 metric tons of CO2 emissions when driven 12 months and over 19,000 miles. (FY-09-10 actual mileage for a downtown ambulance)

ATCEMS will be able to obtain an overall 36.8% reduction in Nitrogen Oxide Emissions (NOx) – a total reduction of 0.014 metric tons of NOx emissions when driven 12 months and over 19,000 miles. (FY-09-10 actual mileage for a downtown ambulance)

Austin-Travis County EMS Chief of Staff James Shamard will be the point of contact for the news conference.

The following project partners will have staff available for questions:

Austin-Travis County EMS

City of Austin Fleet Services

Austin Climate Protection Program

City of Austin Sustainability Office

Wheeled Coach Industries Inc.

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That $160,000 is a pipe dream if I ever heard one. I would be willing to bet that they will be lucky if they get within 2/3rds of that amount. What is the cost of the panels and the EROI? Additionally, what is the cloud cover and run break down (i.e. more runs at night, in the day etc) because it dont matter how many soalr panels you have on your truck, if you are idling at the hospital during a cloudy day or at night or even under an awning like most hospitals have for their ambulance bays, all those soalr panels will produce exactly zero energy. One of the concentrations for my major is Environmental (green) technologies.

The math that they did, rarely, if ever is as acurate as what is actually going on in the real world application. Their math is nice, but I would much rather see how and what they are basing these numbers on (the terms/variables) as opposed to the numbers themselves. Statisitcs like these can be very, very misleading and down right incorrect if the wrong initial assumptions are used.

Who did these stiochiometric convsersions for them because I promise you these calculations were not done in house. (you need roughly a masters in enviromental economics to speak with an authority at all on this subject)

I am just going say this right now, it would be alot easier and less expensive if they just shut the damn thing off as opposed to find new, ingenous, expensive and usually ineffective means to mitigate this problem.

Edited November 23, 2010 by bvfdjc316

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This is an experimental project, and involves some of the top people in the field. They have been studying this for a long, long time.

I give them kudos to try and make the effort to make ambulances more eco-friendly, especially ones that may sit on post or are on the road all day and spit exhaust.

The ambulances also use biodiesel, and they have strict idling rules. You can run the Air Condition off of shoreline power when in the station as well. They will be working to implement having shorelines at the ED's soon.

And this is Austin, TX. Although we have some cloudy and cold days, it's sunny 98% of the year, and enough sunlight gets through on some cloudy days to be able to be absorbed by these solar panels. Plus, we're closer to the sun, lol.

We're a very green city, and being that we are a college town (University Of Texas) and have numerous industries such as Motorola (make semiconductors for NASA), Samsung, Apple, Facebook, Whole Foods, Freescale Semiconductor, Dell, and so many more, we have a lot of smart minds and very active citizens.

Here are some of Austin's "Green" Iniatives:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/greencityfest/gcaccomplishments.htm

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

This is an experimental project, and involves some of the top people in the field. They have been studying this for a long, long time.

I give them kudos to try and make the effort to make ambulances more eco-friendly, especially ones that may sit on post or are on the road all day and spit exhaust.

The ambulances also use biodiesel, and they have strict idling rules. You can run the Air Condition off of shoreline power when in the station as well. They will be working to implement having shorelines at the ED's soon.

And this is Austin, TX. Although we have some cloudy and cold days, it's sunny 98% of the year, and enough sunlight gets through on some cloudy days to be able to be absorbed by these solar panels.

Your pretty much wrong on your statement about clouds and cloudy days. 1. Austin, Texas gets 300 days of sun or roughly 80% as defined by the National Weather Service not 98%. Huge difference, like the difference between Western Vermont and a tropical island 2. Any amount of clouds or particles in the air (including humidity too, since water in its gas form is another particle type) interferes with the panel driving its efficiency down to near zero. It does not matter how much cloud cover there is, smog, humidity, pollen etc etc will all interfere with the amount of energy the solar panel is absorbing. Atmospheric properties and principles such as Mie, Reyleigh and non-selective scatter dictate that fact to us.

The biggest question is how much did they spend on the panels and what is the energy return on investment. Considering it takes over 20 years to pay off the energy return on investment for one solar panel on your individual house, I am willing to bet ATCEMS does not recoup their losses for installing and maintaining the panels before the useful life of the truck is over. The panel can be installed on another truck but at what cost? Also, if this is for use when idling, how can it be used if the ambulance is under an awning.

I give them a thumbs up for their efforts as well but in my opinion, having been trained in environmental economics by the lead environmental economist on the IPCC and the Copenhangen and Kyoto protocols I am very skeptical. There are a lot unanswered questions and I know you are not their PIO but this press release is green propoganda and nothing more considering how little is actually explained. The numbers are fine and good but the derivation of the numbers and how they got there are a lot more important and telling than the numbers themselves. (and this is coming from an ardent environmentalist)

Edited November 23, 2010 by bvfdjc316

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It's not so much about the cost savings, it's more about finding ways to reduce emissions.

They can run the module air conditioning and refrigerator off these solar panels with the vehicle turned off, and supplement when the vehicle is turned on. I've witnessed it.

There are numerous succesful solar powered projects in the city, and I predict this to be succesful for ATCEMS and the EMS community in one way or the other.

Sorry about my statement on the amount of cloudy days versus the statistic which varies widely year to year, I only live here, what do I know, lol? The weather here is really just a guessing game, it changes by the minute. The NWS can take it's statistic back, since they are the wrong most of the time with their warnings in this area.

http://www.solaraustin.org/

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

It's not so much about the cost savings, it's more about finding ways to reduce emissions.

They can run the module air conditioning and refrigerator off these solar panels with the vehicle turned off, and supplement when the vehicle is turned on. I've witnessed it.

There are numerous succesful solar powered projects in the city, and I predict this to be succesful for ATCEMS and the EMS community in one way or the other.

Sorry about my statement on the amount of cloudy days versus the statistic which varies widely year to year, I only live here, what do I know, lol? The weather here is really just a guessing game, it changes by the minute. The NWS can take it's statistic back, since they are the wrong most of the time with their warnings in this area.

http://www.solaraustin.org/

If it is going to work any where it is going to work in Texas I bet you that. If Texas were to build large wind/solar farms and improve the national energy grid, they could make a hell of a profit selling energy that generated basically for free in the long run and can not run out.

And thank you for this discussion, it is always fun to engage in non-political discussions on climate change, initiatives and policy.

Edited November 23, 2010 by bvfdjc316

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If it is going to work any where it is going to work in Texas I bet you that. If Texas were to build large wind/solar farms and improve the national energy grid, they could make a hell of a profit selling energy that generated basically for free in the long run and can not run out.

And thank you for this discussion, it is always fun to engage in non-political discussions on climate change, initiatives and policy.

No problem. It's a huge issue down here. I'm proud to live in a place that embraces it so passionately.

We have a huge solar and wind farms going up across the state, especially the vast expanses of west Texas. The company that makes the turbine generators is about a mile from my house (TECO-Westinghouse), which creates hundreds of jobs in my city, which is also home to Dell, which power a lot of their campus on solar energy. SunPower, a large solar power company, just announced today it is opening an office in Austin and hiring 450 people. Numerous buildings in the area already rely on solar and wind power that's generated on their property, and get credit for feeding back any energy they don't use into the grid. Living green is HUGE down here, and it isn't just touted for PR reasons. Visit Austin and you'll see exactly what I mean everywhere you go.

And, with the ambulances, besides the enviromental aspects, the financial benefits is if they do save the fuel and can save as much as they say, that's more money for them to hire more medics and add more trucks or buy new equipment.

As you said, there's still a lot of things to be figured out, but we have to start somewhere. The two links I posted are a more realistic look on how Austin is using solar power.

Here's a good article in our local paper about the benefits and drawbacks of solar power:

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/08/29/0829energy.html

http://www.muelleraustin.com/thinking-green/austin-energy-green-building-program

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Here is some more detailed information on the ATCEMS fleet and the solar power program:

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-ambulances-going-green-1065133.html?srcTrk=RTR_504016

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Good article, very informative. I am still curious how much they paid for the panels themselves. They already saved money and decreased emissions by switching chassis, but the cost of each solar panel will really determine if the panel pays for itself and reduces emissions even further. Honestly, a huge step in a less oil dependent and greener direction, if only we could increases those MPGs even further...

Edited December 5, 2010 by bvfdjc316

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Regardless of where you stand on the feasibility of solar ambulances or solar power, it's refreshing to see a progressive, forward moving agency.