Solaris bags order for 130 hydrogen fuel cell buses

Polish bus maker Solaris has bagged record order for 130 hydrogen-powered buses from the municipal public transport operator TPER in the city of Bologna in Italy. The company says the bus operator has the option to extend the the order by an additional 140 vehicles.

One of the largest projects of hydrogen public mobility in Europe, the cities of Bologna and Ferrara are aiming to make urban public transportation fully zero-emission by 2030. The delivery will encompass 127 units of ‘Urbino 12’ (12-metre) hydrogen buses for TPER Bologna and 3 units for TPER Ferrara.

The Urbino 12 Hydrogen is powered by a 70 kW fuel cell system that sources hydrogen from five Type-IV composite tanks placed on the bus roof. With the tanks able to hold 37.5 kg of hydrogen, the bus will be able to cover about 350 km.

Solaris claims that the first batch of 37 hydrogen buses will hit the road of the Italian cities as early as in 2024. The rest of the vehicles will arrive in 2025-2026. The manufacturer has already delivered over 120 hydrogen-powered buses to a dozen of operators in 8 countries across Europe, including an articulated variant Urbino 18 hydrogen bus.

It is to be noted that early this month, Solaris has received an order for its hydrogen bus model from Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH (RVK) for deployment in Cologne, Germany. In April this year, the company announced that it had bagged order for 52 Urbino hydrogen buses.

The bus maker is also delivering 47 units of Urbino 12 and five articulated models with a larger 100 kW fuel cell system in Germany. To support the hydrogen fleet, two hydrogen refuelling stations are also expected to be built in the towns of Güstrow and Bad Doberan with the help of Solaris.