The users of the semi-direct bus line
Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) then launched one of the few hydrogen projects that have gone from PowerPoint to reality. That first bus has been followed by eight others. All of them physically appear the same as the rest of the fleet, but equipped with a hydrogen cell capable of generating the energy necessary to move a 180 kW electric motor.
The project was carried out in collaboration with Iberdrola, which is the company that produces green hydrogen in the first hydrogen plant in Spain located in the free zone of Barcelona.
The loading process, according to the project developers, lasts no more than 10 minutes. In that time they can refuel between 30 and 37.5 kg of hydrogen. With them they have autonomy to operate throughout the day, around 400 km.
Iberdrola’s hydrogen plant is not exclusive to TMB. It has a 2.5 MW electrolyzer capable of producing 400 tons of green hydrogen. But it is prepared to double its capacity with another 2.5 MW. Only with the current capacity could service 60 buses.
Last September, TMB put out to tender the manufacture of another 36 new hydrogen-powered buses that will still take a while to reach the streets of Barcelona. “Hydrogen will be key in the decarbonization of heavy transportation. No doubt. But we do not see a spike in demand until 2030. Until then, growth will be very staggered,” says Javier González Pareja, CEO of Bosch Spain, one of the companies that is already betting heavily on the manufacture of hydrogen cells such as the engine of heavy transport of the future, although at the moment in Spain hydrogen only moves about 30 light vehicles and 18 buses throughout Spain.
Another of the emblematic projects already in operation in the country is the electrolyzer that Iberdrola has launched in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), with 20 MW and capable of producing up to 3,000 tons of green hydrogen. The largest in Europe.
This project lays the foundation for what experts say is the basis for the future success of green hydrogen. That production and demand are synchronized. The Puertollano electrolyzer is located just 20 meters from its end customer, the Fertiberia fertilizer factory, to which it currently provides 20% of its hydrogen needs.
“The true takeoff of the technology will be around the Hydrogen Valleys in which, as was done in its day with coal and petrochemicals, ecosystems and collaborations are generated between all the companies in the hydrogen production chain. From producers, engine manufacturers, end consumers,” says Mariano García, CEO of the hydrogen consultancy Inhiset.
The large energy companies are at the head of these business conglomerates. Last October, Repsol kicked off its green hydrogen production with a 2.5 MW electrolyzer to serve its own Petronor refinery and the nearby heavy transport of the nearby Abanto Zierbena Technology Park.
In the coming years the explosion of examples will multiply. Spain is the second country in the world with the highest number of green hydrogen projects underway, only behind the US, according to the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
