Canadian clean energy fuel cell specialist Ballard Power Systems last month announced that it had signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MoU) with European bus manufacturer Van Hool, in support of the manufac- turing and further deployment of zero- emissions fuel cell buses in Europe.

This year, there will be 27 Van Hool fuel cell buses in public transit operation in Europe, powered by Ballard fuel cell power modules.

“With the signing of this MoU, we look forward to expanding the success of our zero-emissions bus partnership with Ballard to include even more cities in the European transit bus market,” Van Hool chairperson Leopold van Hool said.

For the newly funded buses, Ballard will deliver its next-generation fuel cell power module to Van Hool for incorporation into hybrid bus platforms.

The new FCvelocity-HD7 power module will offer improved durability and reliability, along with significant cost reduction. The MoU also provides for the establishment of a dedicated service and parts centre at the Van Hool facilities in Belgium, to support all buses powered by Ballard fuel cells in Europe.

“We are very pleased to partner with Van Hool in our application for European Union (EU) funding to support the deployment of additional fuel cell-powered buses. This will help generate economies of scale that we expect to drive further overall cost reduction,” Ballard president and CEO John Sheridan said.

The two companies planned to jointly respond to the call for proposals under the EU Hydrogen Fuel Cell Joint Under- taking, a public–private partnership supporting research, technological development and demonstration activities in fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies, providing subsidies for eligible projects through a cost-share mechanism.

The European Commission and industry have each committed to contributing €470-million into fuel cell and hydrogen research in the 2008 to 2017 period. The next programme, Horizon 2020, to which Ballard and Van Hool also planned to respond jointly, would extend this initiative through the year 2020 with an incremental budget of €700-million.