Düsseldorf’s Rheinbahn is one of the transport companies in Germany that relies on both battery-electric buses and hydrogen fuel cell buses for the alternative drive systems of its buses. The reason for this is simple: when Saarbahn in Saarbrücken presented its hydrogen fuel cell buses about a month ago, it said that there are routes for which battery-electric buses are the better choice and others for which buses with fuel cells are more suitable. The advantage of hydrogen buses is that they have a longer range and can be refuelled in much less time. Refuelling a hydrogen bus takes a maximum of 15 minutes (refuelling a diesel bus is not much faster), while recharging batteries takes at least two hours. This means that hydrogen buses can return to service much more quickly.
As a result, Düsseldorf’s Rheinbahn now has both battery-electric buses and fuel cell buses powered by hydrogen. Ten ‘Caetano H 2 City Gold’ buses were followed by the same number of ‘Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen’ buses. There is one significant difference between the Caetano and Solaris buses: the fuel cells in the Caetano buses come from Toyota in Japan, while those in the Solaris buses come from Ballard in Canada.
The hydrogen filling station in Düsseldorf-Lierenfeld
Well, the Rheinbahn’s hydrogen buses have to get their hydrogen from somewhere. After all, the Rheinbahn does not have its own filling station for this purpose.
On 26 May, the company ‘H 2 Mobility’ opened a hydrogen filling station on Höherweg in the Lierenfeld district of Düsseldorf. Mona Neubauer, Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, emphasised in her speech at the opening that it is important to focus on hydrogen in order to significantly reduce pollutant emissions from road traffic.
H2 Mobility, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf and the Rheinbahn transport company joined forces to realise the hydrogen filling station. It is located on a site owned by Stadtwerke Düsseldorf and has a capacity of 5 tonnes of hydrogen. From spring 2026, it will obtain its hydrogen from a 2-megawatt electrolyser at the neighbouring municipal waste incineration plant. The heat generated during the incineration of the waste is used to generate electricity. This electricity in turn powers the electrolyser, which then produces hydrogen in a technically uncomplicated process. And that hydrogen is green hydrogen produced on site.
Incidentally, the hydrogen used by Wuppertal’s WSW for its fuel cell buses is produced using exactly the same principle.
Until the electrolyser is completed, H 2 Mobility will deliver the hydrogen in tank semi-trailers.
The hydrogen filling station in Lierenfeld has three filling points where all types of vehicles can be refuelled. All at the same time. Starting with hydrogen cars, which require a charging pressure of 700 bar, to vehicles that need a pressure of 500 bar, to trucks and buses that require a charging pressure of 350 bar.
A ‘Solaris Urbino12 hydrogen’ from Rheinbahn, two Hyundai ‘XCient’ trucks, a Mercedes Econic truck with hydrogen drive and a MAN semi-trailer truck were present at the opening. They clearly demonstrated the wide range of customers that the facility can serve.
The filling station is open to the public, and anyone can refuel here. This includes the buses of Düsseldorf’s Rheinbahn. It does not have its own filling station, but comes here to the ‘H 2 Mobility’ filling station with its fuel cell buses. However, Annette Grabbe, Director of Operations at Düsseldorf’s Rheinbahn, emphasised at the inauguration of the filling station: ‘It’s not far from our bus depot to the filling station.’
The situation is somewhat different for Leverkusen’s transport company Wupsi (Wupsi = Kraftverkehr Wupper – Sieg). It will soon receive ten Caetano H 2 City Gold buses. And because there is currently no hydrogen filling station in Leverkusen, these Caetano buses will also have to drive to this filling station in Düsseldorf-Lierenfeld for the time being.
