Fuel cell electric buses: Experience of a zero-emission solution

Mobility is at the heart of our society meanwhile the transport sector is responsible for about one third of Europe’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the main cause of air and noise pollution, affecting citizens’ health, especially in urban areas. What if we could find a way to move as flexibly, quickly and conveniently as today and at the same time keep our environment clean? Fuel cell electric buses are part of the solution and a commercialisation strategy is in place to bring the costs down, and this is what past deployments and the JIVE project are demonstrating across Europe.
After introducing the topic and explaining what fuel cell electric buses are, the paper will highlight the results and recommendations of previous and current fuel cell bus deployment projects to date – namely CHIC, High V.LO-City and Hytransit. The JIVE and MEHRLIN projects, which will deploy 139 new fuel cell buses and their hydrogen infrastructure will then be introduced along with the commercialisation strategy of fuel cell buses that started in parallel. The paper ends with a mention of the JIVE 2 project, which will add another 152 fuel cell buses in European cities, and will expend the deployment to new countries in Europe.