Ladakh in race with Delhi to launch country’s first hydrogen bus service

Jammu: The Leh capital of Union Territory of Ladakh is in the race with the national capital Delhi to launch the country's first hydrogen bus service to be operated by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).
“The UT of Ladakh is moving towards becoming a carbon neutral state and the introduction of Hydrogen bus service will prove to be a milestone in this direction,” said the official.
He added that the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, R K Mathur last year signed the MoU with NTPC REL stating that the project will take Ladakh on the path of becoming the first hydrogen-based region in the country and in due course phase out fossil fuel.
“The race between Delhi and Leh started last year to become the country’s first city with public transport service running on green hydrogen,” he added.
Notably, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi also laid the foundation stone of several projects at the national level, including the country's first Green Hydrogen Mobility Project in Leh on Saturday at the conclusion of the ‘Ujjwal Bharat Bright Future’ program.
“The five fuel cell electricity buses are expected to start very soon in Leh as a pilot project,” added an official and said that the hydrogen bus project will be operated by the National Thermal Power Corporation and the NTPC has started the Green Hydrogen Mobility Project within the stipulated time.
“The Ladakh’s capital signed an agreement with state-run generation utility NTPC’s renewable energy arm for launching hydrogen buses as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s carbon-neutral vision for the country’s youngest Union Territory,” official sources added.
They said that hopefully Leh will be the country’s first region to have hydrogen bus service following which the transport service will also expand to every part of the Union Territory.
“As the electric buses are powered by a charged battery whereas the hydrogen bus will be operated by a fuel cell using an electric motor,” he said adding, “the buses already have fuel cells and both electric and hydrogen vehicles are completely pollution free.”
Globally, hydrogen is being seen as a true carbon-free mobility solution because water is the only by-product of burning the gas that can be easily obtained.
Updated On 8/2/2022 7:14:02 AM

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