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NRW grants international bus project EUR 1.4M
The Minister of the Economy of North Rhine-Westphalia, Christa Toben, officially granted 1.4 million euro to the German partners of a joint NRW-Netherlands project to develop a serial-hybrid fuel-cell bus.
The joint NRW-Netherlands project was officially announced at last December's annual meeting of the NRW Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Competence Network that took place in Düsseldorf. Shortly after the announcement, the Dutch Ministry of Transport promised to support the Dutch partners with EUR 3.9M. Yesterday, the NRW Government followed suit and promised to support the German partners with EUR 1.4M.
Christa Toben, NRW's Minister for the Economy says that the project demonstrates that North Rhine-Westphalia takes the lead in paving the way towards an environmentally friendly public transportation system. She adds that she is "particularly happy to get these buses on the road together with the Dutch project partners."
Phileas (Source: www.connectedcities.eu)
NRW Hydrogen Hyway
The project is part of the "NRW Hydrogen HyWay" programme, a collection of various fuel cell and hydrogen related development and demonstration projects, for which over EUR 50M will be made available over the years to come. An important milestone will be the 18th World Hydrogen Conference that will take place in 2010 in Essen at which the German-Dutch bus will give acte de présence.
Partners
On the German side Düsseldorf-based Vossloh Kiepe GmbH is responsible for energy management and drive train development. Hoppecke Batterien GmbH will take care of the energy storage by making use of nickel metal hydride batteries. The Institute for Automation Technology at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and the Institute for Electrical Drive of the RWTH Aachen University will jointly conceptualise the energy storage system and simulate the vehicle's drive train.
On the Dutch side, APTS (Advanced Public Transport Systems) from Helmond will deliver the bus platform (Phileas) and NedStack Fuel Cell Technology BV from Arnhem will deliver the vehicles fuel cells.
For more news and background information, have a look at the project's profile page here at MindsinMotion.net (see below).
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