All you need to know about India's first hydrogen fuel cell buses

Four cylinders of green hydrogen with 30 kg capacity can run these buses for 350 km and it hardly takes about 10 minutes to fill the four tanks. Representative image

India’s first hydrogen fuel cell bus was flagged off by Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri in Delhi on September 25. Green hydrogen is a sustainable alternative and does not emit polluting gases, making it a game changer vis-à-vis addressing environmental concerns.

Here’s all you need to know about green hydrogen buses:

Environment-friendly: Only water vapour is emitted as a by-product when hydrogen is burnt, which means, no emission of polluting gases. As Union Minister Nitin Gadkari pointed out: “Hydrogen is the fuel for the future. It is used in chemical, pharmaceutical and steel industries to name a few and it can be used in railways, truck transport and even aviation.”

Also read: NTPC starts trial run of hydrogen bus in Leh

Energy efficient: Green hydrogen fuel has three times the energy density thereby making it not only a cleaner alternative but also more energy efficient. For instance, 9 kg of deionised water and 50 units of renewable electricity will be all you will need to produce 1 kg of green hydrogen.

Four cylinders of green hydrogen with 30 kg capacity can run these buses for 350 km and it hardly takes about 10 minutes to fill the four tanks.

As HS Puri said, hydrogen fuel-powered vehicles can be refilled within minutes, nearly as fast as fossil fuel can fill an internal combustion engine.

Production: The Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has partnered with Tata Motors to handle the green hydrogen fuel cell bus project. IOCL has launched a scientific programme for running operational trials of 15 such green buses that will be plying on Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh roads.

Further, a dispensing facility has been set up in Faridabad by Indian Oil, where green hydrogen produced by electrolysis will be refuelled using solar PV panels.

Also read: Hydrogen Boom: After the centre, states begin to roll out green hydrogen policies

Talking about the initiative, Gadkari had earlier said: “We are looking to use waste and wastewater to generate green hydrogen. The Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru has figured out a way to make green hydrogen from biowaste without power.”

IOCL gets its water supply from Mathura, where 80 MLD sludge is converted into clean water for use in the refinery. It plans to produce 75 kg of hydrogen using renewable sources, which will be used in the two buses unveiled for trial runs.

Trial run: The first indigenous hydrogen fuel cell bus, developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and KPIT Limited, was unveiled in Pune.

The two hydrogen cell fuel buses that were launched on September 25 will run cumulative mileage of over 3 lakh km to help gain long-term assessment vis-à-vis performance and the durability and efficacy of the new technology.

By the end of this year, IOCL is expected to scale up the number of buses to 15, Puri said.

Also read: India's green hydrogen push and challenges

“The success of this project can catapult India from being a net importer of fossil energy to becoming a net exporter of clean hydrogen energy; provide global leadership to other countries in terms of technology transfer while becoming a large green hydrogen producer and supplier of manufacturing parts,” Puri added.