The Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, accompanied colleagues inaugurated the first hydrogen station in Europe at the EMT Madrid Operations Centre in Entrevías. Almeida witnessed the refuelling work and the operation of the first ten buses powered by green hydrogen that begun to provide service in the municipal fleet.
During the visit, the mayor highlighted the launch of this project, “unique in Europe”, since “there is no other European capital that has a public hydrogen recharging station”, which allows these buses to be recharged in nine minutes with clean energy, making Madrid a “leading city in public transport sustainability policies”. The City Council thus reaffirms its commitment to position it as a “core element of mobility” through “sustainable, effective policies that generate investment”. Almeida recalled that, in 2030, the 2,000 buses that circulate on the streets of Madrid will be zero emissions.
The new hydrogen station will cover the entire hydrogen cycle: production, compression, storage and distribution of green hydrogen in a totally innovative comprehensive engineering project, which has an investment of 11.3 million euros co-financed with a contribution of 2.65 million euros from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
At the end of the works, which have been carried out since December 2022 on a surface area of 49,618 m², this hydrogen production plant is already supplying the first buses from the Portuguese manufacturer CaetanoBus. These facilities produce hydrogen from a water electrolysis process, developed entirely by Spanish companies and whose design, construction and management has been carried out by EMT Madrid.
The facility has the following components of national manufacture: a PEM technology electrolyser capable of producing around 18 kg of hydrogen per hour, two compressors, three low, medium and high pressure storage tanks and two pumps for refuelling buses. The filling pressure of the green hydrogen tanks is 350 bars, 75% more than the pressure of compressed natural gas (CNG) compressors.
In parallel, and in order to be able to inject sufficient energy into the hydrogen station, the project has planned the installation of a total of 2,780 photovoltaic panels distributed over three breakwaters. The photovoltaic cover generates a maximum power of 1.6 MWh, 550 kW for each panel.
The hydrogen obtained is compressed and stored so that, in a first phase, a total of ten buses can be refuelled. This hydrogen fleet has been awarded to the Portuguese manufacturer CaetanoBus.
In December 2022, the municipal company published the tender for the supply of ten fuel cell buses powered by green hydrogen to be incorporated into the EMT Madrid clean fleet. The technical specifications for this public tender mentioned these ten standard, 12-metre-long, fuel cell buses powered by green hydrogen for an amount of 639,000 euros per unit. This acquisition is funded by 39.12% from the European NextGenerationEU funds through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
This bus model has five type 4 hydrogen storage bottles, with a total capacity of 1,560 litres to store 37.5 kg of hydrogen. With this capacity, these vehicles achieve at least 280 kilometers of autonomy, which is equivalent to 20 hours of service on the road. Additionally, this vehicle is equipped with three LTO batteries with a capacity of 43.8 kWh that can be charged independently. The recharging time of these fuel cells is estimated at less than ten minutes.
Photo of EMT Madrid
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