Aberdeen Paid £556k Per Hydrogen Bus. 5 Years Later, First Bus Is Paying £30k

Assist CleanTechnica’s work via a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Assist us produce all the high-quality, unique content material we publish week after week regardless of the challenges of content-scraping AI, delinquent media, inflation, and different hurdles.

Aberdeen’s hydrogen double-deckers have lastly produced a helpful market value, and it’s extra revealing than one other theoretical argument about fuel-cell effectivity, hydrogen prices or refuelling infrastructure. First Bus is ready to purchase 23 Wrightbus StreetDeck Hydroliners for £30,000 every. Aberdeen Metropolis Council initially spent about £13.9 million on the 25-bus fleet, a mean of roughly £556,000 per car, which implies the industrial operator taking virtually the complete fleet is paying simply 5.4% of the unique common acquisition price. These usually are not aged buses being disposed of after 15 years of service. They entered service in 2021 and gathered solely about three and a half years of income operation earlier than hydrogen-supply issues left them parked.

The quantity issues as a result of Aberdeen truly examined the market moderately than merely estimating residual worth on a spreadsheet. The confidential council briefing obtained by the Press and Journal says Aberdeen obtained 4 different bids after approaching the market, together with proposals to take buses free of charge and one other providing £1 per car. First’s £30,000 subsequently shouldn’t be interpreted merely as an unusually aggressive negotiation by a classy purchaser. Town went on the lookout for purchasers and found what organizations had been ready to pay for comparatively younger specialist zero-emission autos whose unique drivetrain not had a lot apparent industrial enchantment. When Aberdeen first introduced that it needed to eliminate the fleet, I argued that there was no deep or liquid secondary marketplace for used hydrogen buses. We now have an actual transaction towards which that proposition could be examined.

That is the brief model of a deeper TFIE Technique Briefing evaluation that assessments what the £30,000 value truly means as soon as regular fleet depreciation, the worth of the underlying bus and the economics of eradicating the hydrogen system are placed on the identical foundation. The sale value is the primary verdict. What First Bus does subsequent is the extra attention-grabbing one.

What First is shopping for is equally essential. It doesn’t look like shopping for 23 hydrogen buses as a result of it needs to develop hydrogen operations. The council briefing says First is drawing up plans to overtake them for battery-electric use. That’s technically believable, however it isn’t merely a matter of changing one field with one other. A fuel-cell bus already has electrical traction, but a helpful battery conversion nonetheless means eradicating the hydrogen storage and fuel-cell system, discovering house and structural capability for a number of hundred kilowatt-hours of batteries, managing weight distribution and axle hundreds, integrating charging and thermal administration, adapting controls and auxiliaries, and certifying and warranting the ensuing car. The £30,000 acquisition value is subsequently solely the opening quantity in a a lot bigger choice about how a lot extra capital these autos deserve.

First is about as nicely positioned as any operator might be to analyze that call. It has operated the Hydroliners since new, so it is aware of their upkeep histories and working situation. It has additionally already made a considerable dedication to battery-electric operation in Aberdeen: its £12.7 million funding in 36 electrical buses included 24 new Wrightbus battery-electric double-deckers and 12 current buses repowered from inner combustion to battery electrical. Its King Road depot has fast DC charging infrastructure, and First was the primary UK operator to order conversions from Wrightbus’s NewPower enterprise after serving to develop the programme with two trial autos. This isn’t a purchaser encountering bus repowering for the primary time.

But First has not publicly dedicated to changing all 23 former hydrogen buses. The council briefing says it’s creating plans for electrical conversion, however there isn’t a disclosed battery capability, conversion provider, last engineering configuration, price per car, guarantee bundle or return-to-service schedule. The car transfers themselves are staged, with seven anticipated earlier than the tip of March 2027 and the remaining 16 throughout monetary 12 months 2027–28. There isn’t any public proof of a contractual walk-away possibility, so this shouldn’t be described as a proper conversion trial. Economically, nonetheless, First has restricted its publicity very successfully. Shopping for a recognized five-year-old StreetDeck chassis and physique for £30,000 is reasonable. Committing critical capital to show it right into a dependable battery-electric bus is a separate choice.

That distinction is why the Aberdeen case deserves consideration past one Scottish fleet. Public clean-transport programmes routinely evaluate acquisition prices, grants, gasoline bills, working emissions and infrastructure necessities, however residual worth and exit optionality obtain a lot much less consideration. A expertise can work in service and nonetheless destroy capital if it creates an asset that few patrons need when the unique working mannequin breaks down. Aberdeen has already absorbed virtually all of that capital loss, leaving First with extraordinarily cheap donor autos and sufficient financial headroom to analyze a conversion that will look very totally different if it first needed to pay a traditional used-bus value.

There are two helpful methods the subsequent stage can go. If First develops a dependable and economical conversion bundle, Aberdeen will present that at the least some stranded hydrogen buses could be salvaged beneath unusually beneficial circumstances: comparatively younger autos purchased for nearly nothing, acquired by the operator that has recognized them since new, primarily based on a well-known platform and supported by current battery-bus experience and charging infrastructure. That will be a helpful consequence, however it might not display that hydrogen buses retained substantial resale worth. A lot of the helpful worth would as a substitute have been recovered by eradicating the tools that made them hydrogen buses.

If First can’t make the conversion economics work beneath these circumstances, the conclusion turns into a lot much less comfy for different stranded hydrogen fleets. Few are more likely to mix such a low donor-vehicle value with such younger buses, an skilled incumbent operator, current charging, a well-known chassis and a longtime repowering relationship. Aberdeen has already obtained one reply from the used-vehicle market: a bus that price roughly £556,000 5 years in the past is value £30,000 to the industrial operator taking virtually the complete fleet. The extra attention-grabbing query now could be how a lot First decides these buses are value after the hydrogen tools comes out.

The complete TFIE Technique Briefing evaluation works via the residual-value reference class, conversion economics and what both final result would imply for different stranded hydrogen fleets.