Barcelona will become the first city in Spain to add environmentally-friendly hydrogen fuel cell busses to its public transport fleet.

The city announced that Portuguese manufacturer Caetano Bus won a tender to supply the eight busses for €6.4 million. The vehicles are expected to be delivered and enter service next year.

The purchase will be accompanied by a hydrogen charging plant for the busses, another first of its kind in Spain.

Rosa Alarcón, the president of Barcelona’s public transport authority TMB, said: “TMB must always be at the forefront of sustainable and efficient mobility, which is why today we are taking another step in improving the fleet with this purchase of clean propulsion buses, and we are not limited to purchasing vehicles, we are also committed to enhancing the infrastructure needed to promote this type of energy with measures such as the construction of a hydrogen plant.”

Hydrogen cells provide energy through a process known as reverse electrolysis, whereby the hydrogen in the batteries interacts with oxygen, with the only by-product being water vapour. The busses will use 20 kilograms of hydrogen per day and have a range of 300 kilometres on a single charge.

Hydrogen fuel cell busses one of many alternatives to emissions-producing public transport vehicles. Eurocities members such as Birmingham, Cologne and Riga are part of the EU-funded JIVE projects to increase the presence of hydrogen fuel cell busses on their streets by the early 2020s.

More information available here.