Cologne bus firm receives €29.5m for hydrogen and zero-emission vehicle station | Mobility

Cologne-based regional public transport operator Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH (RVK) has received €29.5m ($34.4) in state funding to build a green mobility hub supporting its hydrogen bus fleet.

The facility in Bergisch Gladbach is set to feature a hydrogen refuelling station and an on-site electrolyser producing up to 36kg of hydrogen per hour for fuelling the firm’s 160 hydrogen buses.

Already under construction and also incorporating battery-electric charging infrastructure, it is expected to be completed by mid-2027.

The new grants from the states of Rhineland (€8.6m) and North Rhine-Westphalia (€20.9m) cover just below half of the project’s €60m ($69.9m) price tag.

RVK said the hub will be powered solely by renewable power, for which it has already put out a tender. It will consider solar- and wind-based providers which can regularly feed power into the grid.

It adds to a similar site near Düsseldorf where RVK will use two 1MW PEM electrolysers from Quest One to produce up to 900kg of hydrogen per day.

The company, which saw 108 new Federal Ministry of Transport funded fuel cell buses delivered last year, claims its hydrogen fleet is now the largest in Europe.

Construction comes as transit operators across Europe look to align with EU green hydrogen usage mandates in the mobility sector.

With Germany imposing more stringent national requirements than the Renewable Energy Directive III’s baseline, the country is pursuing renewable fuels of non-biological origin accounting for at least 10% of transport energy by 2040.

Fuel cell buses, praised for increased range and short refuelling times, are a popular pathway for pursuing these targets.

However, they are often criticised for the low energy efficiency compared to battery electric vehicles, which comes from converting electricity to hydrogen and back again.