Crawley liquid hydrogen bus fleet and refuelling station opens

With £30 million of investment, the liquid hydrogen refuelling station at Crawley depot is now in operation – fuelling nine buses onsite on its first day.

Hydrogen will be stored at the Metrobus Crawley depot in liquid form, before converted into gas held in tanks on the roof of vehicles. 

It takes eight minutes to fill an empty tank of a route 100 bus meaning these buses can spend more time on local roads serving the communities of Sussex and Surrey.

Before now, the Metrobus Crawley depot was solely reliant on gaseous hydrogen to fuel the hydrogen buses.

The gaseous fuel was delivered to the depot in special hydrogen tanks on trailers, meaning the operation was at a much lower scale and not all hydrogen buses could be fuelled and be fully operational. 

Ed Wills, managing director for Metrobus and Brighton and Hove Buses, said: “The plan is for the entire fleet of Fastway buses to operate daily with sixteen buses on routes 10 and 20, and nine further buses on the route 100. That’s twenty-five vehicles in total, with a longer-term plan of fuelling a fleet of up to fifty-four buses from the Metrobus Crawley depot.

"This innovation for buses is a giant leap forward for sustainable transport with Metrobus leading the way in the decarbonisation of local public transport. Less emissions from road vehicles helps to tackle climate change benefitting the environment and the communities we serve.”