The Municipality of Cluj proposed to build a plant that would produce hydrogen – including from waste – for the metropolitan train and the heating of the city.
“We want to have a fleet of such buses in the city, production plant and hydrogen charging station, along with the other component, the electric one, because they are not mutually exclusive. We want to produce energy based on hydrogen at the heating company, but also to have metropolitan train frames also based on this fuel, with funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
“The plant and the charging station are the major investments when we talk about hydrogen; the autonomy of such a bus is 350 km, it charges in 10 minutes, faster than the electric one. We can’t make the plant just for buses, we want to think, with the Technical University (UTCN), a hydrogen project for heating, waste. Let’s connect the city to the highest technologies,” said mayor Emil Boc, according to Transilvania Business.
“Let’s hope that the prices for such buses will decrease, in the beginning purchases were made for 1.5 million euros per unit, currently they have reached 0.5 million. Any new technology is expensive at first until it becomes widespread. In Romania, however, we need to move from hydrogen buses and stations to hydrogen ecosystems or valleys. Let’s come up with the production of hydrogen from renewable sources, let’s decarbonize not only local transport, but also industry, trains, the airport, airplanes. To produce energy from several sources, when one of them is missing, but to store energy when we have a surplus. I would like to see the first wave of energy in Romania in Cluj”, said Mirela Atanasiu, executive director of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership (CHP).
A Toyota bus with hydrogen-based fuel cells, produced in Portugal, is being tested for several days in Cluj-Napoca, on lines 5, 30, 35, 44 and 45, through a project with European funds. Rides are free during the test phase.
The British ambassador, Giles Matthew Portman, representatives of the innovation ecosystem in Romania, local authorities, representatives of CHP, Hydrogen Europe, ERM, but also from the Ministries of European Investments and Projects, Energy participated in the tests that started at Cluj Arena , Transport, Development, Public Works and Administration.
The event is part of the JIVE European programs, promoting new technology in Central and Eastern Europe. Cluj hosts the hydrogen bus promotion tour as part of JIVE projects supported and financed by European funds through CHP. The initiative will be followed this year by other cities in Greece, Bosnia Herzegovina and Bulgaria.