Hydrogen buses arrive in Wollongong | December 10, 2023 | Illawarra Mercury
Check out the new hydrogen buses to be trialed along the free Wollongong shuttle route. Director of Premier Coaches John King took a group of local and state politicians for a test ride and explained how the buses work on December 10, 2023.
Video by Marlene Even and Adam McLean.
Video by Marlene Even and Adam McLean.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Okay, so this is a battery bus typically.
00:11 It's got 114 kilowatts of batteries on it.
00:14 When the batteries get down to about 50 percent, the hydrogen fuel cell will cut in.
00:19 It will then drag the hydrogen out of the cylinders that sit across the roof.
00:23 Coming down through, it will create hydrogen and oxygen will create an energy which comes
00:28 through an inverter which then charges the battery up again and it keeps running.
00:32 So that's when the range anxiety starts to disappear.
00:35 The hydrogen fuel cell, 32 kilos on the roof.
00:38 When the batteries get to about 50 percent, it will then charge the batteries back up
00:43 through an inverter.
00:44 So it's not actually driving on hydrogen, it's driving on battery.
00:47 The interesting part about this is that you actually only need about 50 kilowatts of batteries
00:52 on this really if you're going to run the hydrogen.
00:54 So we're just going to balance that out and that's the data we're going to learn from
00:58 because if you take one battery off here, you take about $150,000 out of the cost.
01:02 So that's what we're doing.
01:04 I told you when you came into government I was going to give you a solution, mate.
01:07 But that's the difference.
01:09 So look, bear in mind from a typical battery bus that I'm running in the depot on a trial,
01:14 it's two tonne lighter than that.
01:16 But there's 450 watts of battery.
01:18 But it will take up to a minimum about four hours to charge those batteries.
01:23 We refuelled this this morning in 10 minutes.
01:26 Straight in, fast fuel, same as diesel.
01:30 This thing will go out and act and look and be treated like a normal battery bus,
01:34 it's just passing us by now.
01:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]