Developments over the next three years could turn fuel-cell technology from the eye-wateringly expensive stuff of laboratories to practical reality comparable with battery electrics, as ALAN MILLAR learnt at a conference in the UK city with more of these buses than in any other across Europe
Many still regard hydrogen fuel-cell buses as playthings of nutty professors — clever zero emission technology that is way too expensive and unproven to be practical, but its supporters are determined not only to change that perception but also the reality. Many of them gathered in Aberdeen in March to share their experience and hopes for the future.
The conference location was appropriate, as out of 18 hydrogen fuel-cell buses in UK service, 10 — the largest concentration in Europe — have run in Aberdeen since March 2015, supported by Europe’s largest hydrogen manufacturing and fuelling station, within a council depot in the northern district of Kittybrewster. This also fuels cars and vans, as does a second facility recently opened at Cove in the south of Aberdeen.
This is part of an ambition to transform the city from the oil capital of Europe into the continent’s green energy capital, harnessing wind and wave p…
