Bus operators from Germany and South Tyrol, Italy, are partnering to acquire 63 fuel cell buses for their public transport systems as part of the EU-funded JIVE project.

The joint procurement activity is part of the JIVE (Joint Initiative for hydrogen Vehicles across Europe) project, an EU-funded project aiming to deploy 139 new zero-emission fuel cell buses across nine cities.

Ben Madden, director of Element Energy, the project co-ordinator in the UK, has said that taking a co-ordinated approach to purchasing large numbers of these buses facilitates the delivery of increased standardisation and significant cost reductions, allowing the cities to realise their ambitious zero-emission bus adoption plans.

The project was set up to deploy some 140 of these new buses across nine locations, in five European countries.

It will also test new hydrogen refuelling stations capable of serving fleets of more than 20 buses. This will both reduce the cost of hydrogen, as well as test the system’s capacity to offer reliability at the required commercialisation level.

Through its large-scale deployment, JIVE’s overall objective is to make it commercially viable for bus operators to include hydrogen fuel cell buses in their fleets, without the need for subsidies. By doing so JIVE aims to offer local and national governments a viable option to meet targets for emissions reductions.