The City of Dundee is participating in a European project which has received a €25million grant to deploy 152 hydrogen fuel cell buses across 14 European cities in the drive to decarbonise European cities. Following on from Aberdeen in JIVE with the further deployment of 10 fuel cell buses, bring their total to 20, Dundee will be deploying 12 hydrogen fuel cell electric buses.
Both cities joined these projects through the Scottish Cities Alliance, which is the collaboration of Scotland’s seven cities and the Scottish Government working to promote the country’s economic potential, underpinned by a commitment to make our cities efficient and sustainable, ensuring that the cities meet the increasing aspirations of international investors.
Through its collaborative approach the Alliance has made significant progress for Scotland in hydrogen technologies, by working with the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) for the commercialisation of hydrogen refuelling infrastructure and hydrogen fuel cell buses – Joint Initiative for Hydrogen Vehicles Across Europe (JIVE). These are the most ambitious projects to-date, deploying large scale refuelling infrastructure and fuel-cell bus deployment across Europe.
Coordinated by Element Energy - a leading low carbon energy consultancy, with expertise in the initiation and coordination of large scale demonstration projects – and supported by a €25m grant from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), the JIVE 2 project will deploy 152 fuel cell electric buses across 14 European cities throughout France, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK.
Through this work, Scotland is positioning itself as one of Europe’s leading early adopters of hydrogen technology which will help to attract investment into sectors such as manufacturing, engineering and encourage the commercialisation of hydrogen technologies over the coming years.
As well as the economic benefits, zero emission hydrogen fuel buses also contribute to the achievement of Scotland’s challenging climate change targets, as well as improving local air quality in our cities.
Further projects of scale within this sector are being scoped to ensure that Scotland continues to be at the forefront of this dynamic technology and supply chain development is a very important part of this scoping.
Chair of the Scottish Cities Alliance and Leader of Dundee City Council, John Alexander, said: “I am delighted that Aberdeen and Dundee have been successful within these ambitious projects. Working with the Scottish Cities Alliance, these buses and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure will further progress the decarbonisation of our cities by providing zero emission buses for our citizens.
“Dundee plans to create a ‘state of the art’ integrated energy park deploying hydrogen fuel cell buses, fleet vehicles and hydrogen and alternative fuels refuelling infrastructure with energy being derived from renewable technologies. This project will be a ‘first of its kind’ in Scotland combining heat, power and transport.
“The JIVE and JIVE 2 projects will allow a considerable expansion of the European bus fleet. The overall objective of JIVE and JIVE 2 is to significantly advance the commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cell buses through large-scale deployment of vehicles and infrastructure so that by the end of the project (early 2020s) hydrogen fuel cell buses are commercially viable for bus operators to include in their fleets without subsidy and that local and national Governments feel empowered to regulate for zero emission propulsion for their public transport system
“We would like to build strong relationships with private sector partners both European and internationally on how we can work together on future projects, so this is the first step in what we hope will be a very positive story for hydrogen bus fleets across Scotland’s cities.”
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