Hydrogen supply deal for Go-Ahead
Go-Ahead has agreed a 15-year hydrogen supply deal with Air Products to power a fleet of fuel cell buses in the Gatwick Airport, Crawley and Horley area.
The single-deck Wrightbus Hydroliner buses will be delivered in June 2022 and will be the first hydrogen-powered vehicles in Go-Ahead’s fleet of more than 6,000 buses.
Hydrogen will be stored at the Metrobus Crawley depot in liquid form, before being converted to gas held in tanks on the roof of vehicles.
The single-deck fuel cell buses are funded in part with money from UK Government and European Union zero-emission bus schemes, plus investment from Gatwick Airport. A further order of 34 buses would bring the fleet to 54 vehicles, which would be the largest local fleet of hydrogen buses deployed in Europe to date.
Christian Schreyer, group chief executive, Go-Ahead Group, says: “This is our first hydrogen supply deal, and it represents a milestone in our plans to transition Go-Ahead’s entire fleet of buses to zero emission fuel.
“We’re delighted to be working with Air Products and with Wrightbus. This is an example of what can be achieved through a mixture of public and private funding, and of co-operation between different environmentally responsible partners.”