Germany – Zero emissions with hydrogen on Brühl city bus routes.
The really big package was put together for April 18 in Brühl and presented at the Brühl ironworks site. Six brand new Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogengo into regular service and Germany’s first mobile hydrogen filling station in continuous operation of the Westfalen Group is now ready for refueling. As the icing on the cake, the new buses were given original designs with segment advertising for Stadtwerke Brühl
Brühl was one of the pioneers who, together with RVK and Hürther Stadtwerke, took the first big step back in 2011 – with hydrogen as an alternative drive for public transport. At that time, two buses of the Phileas prototype were put into operation, whose emission-free drive with hydrogen was convincing, and since October 2021 three hydrogen-powered vehicles have been in use in Brühl’s city traffic.
The decision to switch city traffic to hydrogen was made on March 16, 2022 in Brühl. With the commissioning of the six new vehicles, the hydrogen landscape in the metropolitan area around Cologne will be enriched by another piece of the puzzle.
Hydrogen – the alternative drive in public transport
For Brühl, the use of the six new Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen is changingsome. As of today, the city bus lines will be almost entirely driven by hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses, making public city transport almost completely emission-free. Diesel buses are only used during the so-called “peak hours”, i.e. the rush hours during morning school transport.
Hydrogen-powered fuel cell hybrid buses score in many respects. With the exception of water vapor, they cause no local emissions.
In addition to the greatly reduced noise emissions, this means, among other things, no emissions of NOx (collective term for gaseous oxides of nitrogen), CO 2 (carbon dioxide) and soot particles.
With just under 390,000 km a year, which in Brühl are now driven exclusively with hydrogen, 393 tons of CO 2 and 0.55 tons of NOx are now avoided compared to a Euro 6 diesel bus .
The 12 meter long Solaris vehicles newly integrated into the fleet have a range comparable to the diesel buses currently in use. They can be refueled almost as quickly as diesel buses and therefore do not require any adjustments for operational processes. In addition to these new vehicles, a 2014 Van Hool A330 FC is in service.
The mobile gas station
The Westfalen Group’s mobile hydrogen filling station was developed in cooperation with the British company NanoSun. It is a container-based fast-fill solution for refueling at 350 bar. Filling a fuel cell bus with the mobile hydrogen filling station takes less than 20 minutes. Since the filling station container can deliver up to 230 kg of hydrogen from several bottles, fuel cell buses can be refueled about ten times in one cycle.
The system is considered to be particularly robust, since no components that are prone to failure are used. If a container is empty, it is refilled or simply replaced with a full container.
The location of the gas station on the premises of the ironworks was chosen after short, successful negotiations, since there is an ideal and currently unused space for the installation of the mobile gas station in the parking lot there.
The design of the buses
The Brühler Stadtwerke ensure the quality of life in their city and region. This is now optically fresh and emotionally staged and can now be seen on the streets of the castle town. The six new hydrogen buses are eye-catchers for the municipal utility brands “StadtbusBrühl” and “BrühlMobil”, “BrühlStrom”, “BrühlGas”, “BrühlWasser”, “BrühlWärme” and “KarlsBad”.
Funding for the vehicles
The procurement of the Brühl buses was made possible as part of a comprehensive funding commitment from the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport to the RVK. The funding guideline is coordinated by NOW GmbH and implemented by the project management agency Jülich (PtJ). The logos of these institutions are therefore located in the roof ring of the buses.
RVK, with its administrative headquarters in Cologne, renders its services in the area around Cologne and Bonn, including since 1998 for Stadtwerke Brühl GmbH, which is a shareholder of RVK. With its public authorities and shareholders, RVK is one of the hydrogen pioneers in Europe.
Statements:
Thomas Isele, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Brühl GmbH:
We are pleased that we can make a significant contribution to climate protection with the new hydrogen buses.
“With the new hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses in Brühl city traffic and our e-car sharing, we have pioneering technologies in use for zero-emission mobility.”
dr Marcel Frank, Managing Director of Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH:
Thanks to the far-sighted support of our shareholders, we have been making a decisive contribution to a climate-friendly transformation of public transport for 12 years now Hydrogen landscape would have been unthinkable, and Brühl is now completely part of it.
Dieter Freytag, Mayor of the City of Brühl:
The turnaround in mobility is an important topic in Brühl.
“In addition to bicycle and pedestrian traffic as well as modern sharing offers, we want to promote public transport as the backbone of sustainable mobility. With our attractive city bus system, we offer the people of Brühl and Brühler as well as visitors have long had a very good mobility offer. Almost all areas of Brühl can be easily reached every half hour. With the new hydrogen buses, this mobility option is now also emission-free and thus underlines the ambitions of Brühl’s climate protection.”
dr Nicolas Dohn, Head of Hydrogen at the Westfalen Group:
We at Westfalen are convinced of the great potential of hydrogen as an energy source.
“In addition to its use in industrial processes, we also see hydrogen as an essential part of the mobility revolution, especially as an alternative drive energy in heavy goods traffic. The mobile hydrogen filling station, as we use it in Brühl, is characterized above all by its flexibility – which enables it to be used as needed and can therefore decisively support the market ramp-up of hydrogen in mobility”.
Highlights:
• Stadtwerke Brühl and its transport service provider Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH (RVK) are now opting for emission-free city bus operation with hydrogen
• Six new Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen move Brühl passengers in a visually fresh and emotional way
• Germany’s first compressor-free mobile filling station for refueling at 350 bar goes into continuous operation
READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central
Zero emissions with hydrogen on Brühl’s city bus routes, April 19, 2023
