Cummins Westport (CWI) has announced it will begin field tests this year in California in transit buses with a spark ignited natural gas engine capable of producing Near Zero NOx emissions well before the 2023 California Near Zero NOx schedule for Low NOx vehicles.
CWI believes its proprietary Stoichiometric EGR Spark Ignited (SESI) natural gas engine technology as released on its ISL G and ISX12 G engines is ideally suited to continue to provide an economic and efficient solution to California air quality improvement initiatives.
With funding support from South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), SoCal Gas and California Energy Commission (CEC), CWI has recently invested significantly on leveraging the SESI platform to develop a new Near Zero NOx technology pathway to 0.02 grams per brake-horsepower hour NOx. CWI has demonstrated this technology and will now field test a transit bus with the new Cummins Westport Near Zero NOx ISL G that will reduce NOx emissions by 90% from the current EPA limit of 0.2 g/bhp-hr to 0.02 g/bhp-hr NOx while also meeting the 2017 EPA greenhouse gas emission requirements.
The new Near Zero NOx ISL G will continue to offer customers the benefit of performance with the lowest emissions utilizing maintenance-free Three Way Catalyst (TWC) aftertreatment. TWCs are effective, simple, passive devices, packaged as part of the muffler.
Cummins Westport natural gas engines do not require active aftertreatment such as a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) or Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR).
Since it was first introduced in 2007, the ISL G 8.9 liter engine has become the leading natural gas engine for transit buses and refuse trucks which represents a significant portion of on-highway and urban power in California.
While commercial availability will be announced at a later date, the Near Zero NOx technology in the ISLG engine will be made available as a first fit engine with transit and refuse OEMs and as an engine replacement for existing ISL G vehicles resulting in an immediate NOx emission reduction well before the 2023 Near Zero NOx goals set in California.
