About the project

Environmentally friendly Efficient Electric Motion

It is now widely acknowledged that the future of public transport buses will have to be zero-emission. Fuel cell electric buses (FCEB’s - also called hydrogen buses) are one of the technologies that meet that requirement. 

3Emotion stands for Environmentally friendly Efficient Electric Motion

The project bridged the gap between current fuel cell bus demonstration projects and larger scale deployment.
It presented the deployment of 21 new and the further use of 8 existing fuel cell buses with the required refueling infrastructure.

These buses will be deployed in 5 sites and operated by 7 public transport operators located all over Europe.
Each of these sites had its own constrains for the buses, what makes them all unique and covers the entire range in which fuel cell buses can be a valuable replacement for fossil fueled buses.

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Through the exchange of information about the experiences from daily FCB operations in this locations in Europe (Aalborg (DK), London (UK), Pau (FR), Rotterdam (NL), Versailles (FR)) decisions makers, transport authorities will be informed about:

  • the movement towards cost effective integration of FC Buses in local bus fleets
  • the enhancement of the technical availability of the buses
  • the common technical and safety specifications for Refueling Infrastructure are
  • the toolkit for the identification of a proper mix of incentives to support the market demand side
  • the evolution of fuel cell buses (from CHIC to 3Emotion)

3Emotion Bus Targets are:

  • Articulated buses on hydrogen (18 meters)
  • Integration of latest technologies to lower TCO
  • Lower hydrogen consumption (<10 kg/100 kilometer)
  • Increase lifetime
  • Increase warranties
  • Availability > 90 procent
  • Reduce bus investment cost

Background

  • the European Union (EU) is committed to significantly reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – by at least 80 percent by 2050
  • fuel cell buses, that reduce local emissions to zero, can contribute to decarbonising public transport
  • the FCH-JU published a commercialization study for the roll out of zero emission public transport
  • further emissions reductions (also in public transport) are therefore necessary if the EU is to meet its current – and future – climate targets
  • different EU projects already demonstrated the potential value of fuel cell buses (fe CHIC, HyTransit, HighVLOCity, …)
  • only fully electric powertrain buses (based on hydrogen, batteries or trolley system) have the potential to achieve zero local emissions

Consortium

The 3Emotion Consortium consists out of about 16 partners with each a well defined contribution in the realization of the project objectives. There are 7 public transport operators, a refueling station operator, a bus manufacturer, a fuel cell manufacturer, a knowledge center for evaluation, local authorities and partners that are responsible for dissemination and refueling research present in the consortium.

Funding

The project is supported by the EU through the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (Now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) under grant agreement 633174 and by a series of local authorities.

For more info on fuel cell buses in Europe, you can also visit the website WWW.FUELCELLBUSES.EU