Ballard Power Systems has announced that they have recently signed a new agreement, which will make them the newest addition to a partnership focused on the development of hydrogen-fuelled buses.

This agreement is between Ballard and NFI Group and it will create a long-term supply agreement between the two companies, in which Ballard will provide NFI Group with one hundred fuel cell engines. This agreement follows NFI’s Canadian business, New Flyer’s, decision to work with Hydrogen Purus for the supply of hydrogen cylinders. Hexagon Purus has been the company chosen for work on the hydrogen bus market within North America, three years running. The new agreement has been made as NFI Group, the independent bus and coach manufacturer, who are based in North America and Europe, have a plan to use Ballard’s FCmove® modules within their hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses. In particular the modules will be used to power New Flyer’s Xcelsior CHARGE FC™ hydrogen fuel cell buses. This will be made possible once Hexagon Purus has delivered its Type 4 hydrogen storage cylinders. These cylinders will be delivered between 2023 and 2024 and they were agreed on through a $2.5m contract. Once both of these components have been delivered, they will be combined and put to use within the buses.

The next steps once these modules have been delivered in 2024, will be the buses being deployed throughout the US and Canada. These locations will include California, Manitoba, Nevada, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In the past, Ballard has shown support to bus and coach companies, such as, Solaris Bus & Coach, through supplying the company with fuel cell modules. Previous orders have included figures such as 96 engines in August of 2023 and a further 62 hydrogen fuel cell engines in November. These orders were all created with the aim of powering buses in Germany and Poland.

Ballard’s Chief Commercial Officer, David Mucciacciaro, stated ‘everyone at the company is “proud” to be chosen as the partner for the next phase of growth in the fuel cell bus market’, “We believe New Flyer is well positioned to deliver deployment scale volumes of fuel cell buses, particularly in the US market, where operators increasingly prefer hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses for their range, short refuelling times, high-availability, and cost-effective infrastructure requirements.”

Executive Vice-President, Supply Management at NFI, David White, commented, “This agreement is the next step in our multi-decade partnership with Ballard and a key component in advancing our leading fuel cell bus offerings. By working with Ballard across numerous bus products in multiple jurisdictions, we have been able to leverage best practices and generate design, engineering and sourcing synergies.”