A hydrogen fuel cell AC Transit Bus moves along Broadway in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2023. In September, the governing board of Santa Cruz Metro made a big bet on the future of green public transit when it approved the purchase of 57 buses fueled by hydrogen — the largest order of hydrogen-fueled buses made so far in the U.S.
By 2040, under rules laid down by the California Air Resources Board, transit agencies across the state must convert their entire fleets to buses with zero tailpipe emissions. Other agencies are hedging their bets. The region’s other giant, AC Transit, which serves Alameda and Contra Costa counties, has 23 hydrogen buses and only seven battery-electric models. As it phases out its more than 550 diesel buses over the coming years, they will be replaced with a mixed fleet — with more than two hydrogen buses to each battery-powered bus. SamTrans, which serves San Mateo County, is similarly planning for a hydrogen-dominated mixed fleet.
According to Jack Brouwer, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center and the Advanced Power and Energy Program at UC Irvine, deciding the right number and type of zero-emission buses depends on many factors, including the electrical grid infrastructure, the bus routes, and the road type. “It’s putting the cart before the horse,” said Ray Minjares, heavy-duty vehicles program director with the International Council on Clean Transportation in San Francisco. “We will not decarbonize our transportation sector on the basis of fossil hydrogen,” he said.
Right now, Santa Cruz Metro has no hydrogen fueling stations and no access to genuinely green hydrogen. But on November 3, a public-private partnership called ARCHES, the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy System, received $1.2 billion from the Biden Administration to help build a clean hydrogen hub in California. The state government is providing another $2 billion and industry is supposed to invest around $9 billion.