There have been milestone moments for hydrogen in recent years, with global demand reaching a record high (within limited applications) in 2022 and a joint declaration at COP28 in 2023 calling for hydrogen to be prioritised as a replacement for fossil fuels.
But despite expectations that hydrogen production and use will both grow in 2024, ING Research noted that high prices of green hydrogen production, especially in Europe, were acting as a barrier for demand, and says those costs are expected to rise further still. Research in February revealed that the indicative cost of unsubsidised hydrogen production in Europe stands at €5.50/ kg, versus €1.60kg for grey hydrogen, and that does not include transportation and storage costs, which can also be considerable.
Against this backdrop, the Journal of Energy Storage published a study on 25 November 2023 by Eurac into the real-world operation of 16 hydrogen fuel cell-electric and five battery-electric buses in Italy and found that the former buses were, on average, 2.3 times more expensive to run per kilometre than battery-electric equivalents, with hydrogen fuel cell-electric buses costing €1.27/km against the €0.55/km for battery-electric buses.
Closer to home, hydrogen in bus use hit a further stumbling block when in April National Express (NatEx) announced in its results for the year ended 31 December 2023 that it had made the decision to move away from its hydrogen element of the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme. Could this mean the fuel source’s future within bus is in doubt?
Local authorities reticent
routeone is aware of hydrogen use in bus fleets in five key areas in Great Britain. They are operated by First Bus in Aberdeen, by Metroline in London, by Stagecoach and Arriva in Liverpool with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, by Birmingham City Council (BCC) and NatEx in Walsall, and by Go-Ahead subsidiary Metrobus in Crawley. Only the latter two of these partnerships offered to comment.
At Go-Ahead Group’s operator Metrobus, hydrogen is being used to power a fleet of 20 zero-emission buses, funded through the government’s former Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme (ULEBS), EU JIVE 2 Fund and Gatwick Airport.
The buses operate across routes in the Gatwick Airport, Crawley and Horley areas. An additional 34 buses will be arriving in the next 12 months after being built at Northern Ireland manufacturer Wrightbus and have been funded by Surrey County Council. The operator says the existing fleet has been welcomed by customers and stakeholders, operating efficiently and within the range they are expected to.
Hydrogen buses were selected to serve the routes across Sussex, Surrey, and Kent where they are suited to longer routes with extensive operating hours, including several 24-hour routes. Joint funding remains key owing to the high cost of hydrogen vehicles relative to diesel. Metrobus has worked with national government, three county councils and Gatwick Airport to deliver the transition.
Go-Ahead says lifespan of a hydrogen bus is expected to be the same as battery-electric fleet as they require replacement of fuel cell and battery at half-life and can last up to 15 years. It notes that batteries are smaller, therefore cheaper, than electric bus batteries.
Fuel supply seems to hinder UK ops
In the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) latest ZEBRA scheme funding announcement, Metrobus was successful in being awarded funding for a further 43 hydrogen buses, working in partnership with West Sussex County Council, with £11.6m being funded by capital investment from Go-Ahead Group. That fleet will operate across West Sussex.
However, out of the 20 hydrogen buses at the Metrobus depot, only seven or eight are able to run daily. At present, a missing regulatory assessment prevents Metrobus from fuelling all 20 buses using the hydrogen refuelling station that is in place at the depot. This means that without hazardous substance consent, Metrobus is not able to scale up and store sufficient hydrogen on site to expand its
hydrogen fleet.
The operator highlights a need to update planning regulations accordingly so that all hydrogen infrastructure can be effectively approved and implemented. It says the planning process in other European countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands but also the USA, is further advanced putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage. The issue has been recognised by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) as published in Hydrogen Projects: Planning barriers and solutions research findings, during December 2023.
“Effective planning regulations are critical in order to achieve the UK’s net zero-target. It’s important to emphasise that this is an administrative rather than a safety-related issue. Hydrogen is safe when handled in line with regulations and best practice. The issue needs to be addressed urgently so that companies like Go-Ahead Group can run their full fleet,” a spokesperson says.
Metrobus is actively working with its supplier Air Products to engage with government at all levels and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to secure a permanent agreement that will enable the transition to all 97 buses operating without issue as they are manufactured and deployed over the coming years.
Go-Ahead says DfT and the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy both support hydrogen being used as a fuel, and consider it to be an essential part of the transition to net-zero. But HSE needs to be appropriately resourced to successfully assess evolving uses of hydrogen.
It further warns that to ensure that the opportunity to create a world-leading hydrogen depot is not lost, HSE must work in partnership with government to identify areas where it needs support. “This would enable the full benefits of the hydrogen fleet in Crawley to be realised and unlock future hydrogen fleets across the UK,” it adds.
Use case makes most sense when long-distance?
When NatEx put its fleet of Wrightbus Streetdeck Hydroliners into service in 2021, they were the only hydrogen fuel-cell electric buses operating in England outside London and were part of an initial plan to put a fleet of 144 hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles on the road. That would have formed one of the largest fleets of its kind in Europe.
That ambition ended in April with the announcement that NatEx would be moving away from further hydrogen buses via ZEBRA entirely, following a commercial review and insight gained from the initial trial. Similar to Go-Ahead, a key challenge as revealed to routeone was with “an un unreliable fuel supply”.
In its trading statement NatEx says hydrogen “remains viable for longer distance coach operations in the future”, predicting a total cost of ownership no worse than at parity with diesel (albeit requiring government subsidies on capital cost and/or fuel) and that this will be further evaluated as the technology evolves.
The West Midlands Combined Authority, which launched the vehicles in partnership with BCC and NatEx, did not offer to comment. However, a spokesperson for the operator says: “We are committed to decarbonising our bus fleet in the West Midlands by 2030. We have had a small trial of hydrogen buses in the West Midlands, and while the buses have been great, the fuel supply has not been reliable.
“We know our passengers value reliability above everything else. Given what we’ve learnt from this small trial, we made the decision to withdraw from the hydrogen element of the ZEBRA scheme. We are in discussions with Transport for West Midlands and DfT about next steps.
“The good news is that we are seeing even greater performance than we anticipated from our electric fleet, and we are continuing to invest at pace in new electric vehicles which will mean cleaner air for the people of the West Midlands.”
