When I first read that PG&E was going to try out hybrid repair trucks, I wasn’t sure where the big benefit would come from, since repair trucks don’t make lots of short start-and-stop trips like a garbage truck or mail van:
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.