Ballard Gets Order For 40 Fuel Cell Modules To Power Van Hool Buses In Germany

(RTTNews) - Ballard Power Systems (BLDP, BLDP.TO) announced Tuesday that it has received a purchase order from Van Hool NV, a bus OEM partner in Belgium, for 40 FCveloCity-HD fuel cell modules to power buses. The order is under the Joint Initiative for hydrogen Vehicles across Europe or JIVE funding programs.

The purchase order is further to Ballard's announcement of a Letter of Intent, which was issued on February 28.

Ballard expects to make initial shipments of the FCveloCity-HD 85 kilowatt modules later in 2018, with initial deliveries of buses expected in 2019.

Van Hool plans to deploy 30 buses with the Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH transit agency in Cologne, Germany, and the remaining 10 buses with WSW mobil GmbH transit agency in Wuppertal, Germany.

Rob Campbell, Ballard Chief Commercial Officer, said, "This is the largest order ever for fuel cell buses in Europe and will be the first deployments under the JIVE I program."

Europe's JIVE funding programs are intended to pave the way to commercialization of fuel cell electric buses by coordinating procurement activities to unlock economies-of-scale and reduce costs as well as supporting new hydrogen refueling stations.

The JIVE I program targets deployment of 139 fuel cell buses in 9 locations and the JIVE II program targets a further deployment of 152 buses in 14 locations - for a total of 291 fuel cell buses to be deployed in European cities.