The owners of Hong Kong bus operator Citybus have set their sights on supplying hydrogen buses to the Middle East after launching the city’s first zero-emission bus.
Wisdom Motor, majority owned by private-equity firm Templewater, has been in talks with the transport department of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, to supply customised hydrogen-powered vehicles, said Cliff Zhang, the CEO and founding partner of Templewater.
“We also want to bring in other partners who are not necessarily our portfolio companies,” said Zhang. “Together as a consortium, we can provide a [low-carbon transport] solution to the Middle East.”
David An, chairman of Hong Kong-listed energy storage and trading firm Hans Energy, the impending new majority shareholder of Citybus, said Hans would collaborate with Templewater, Wisdom and other partners to bring hydrogen buses to other markets, especially the Middle East where abundant solar energy would make mass production of green hydrogen viable.
Wisdom, which is majority owned by Templewater, has a bus manufacturing plant spanning 480,000 square metres in China’s eastern Fujian province.
Wisdom’s fuel cell engines are designed by Canada’s Ballard Power System and made by Ballard’s joint venture with Weichai Power in Shandong province.
The acquisition, expected to be completed in July, will raise Hans’ stake to 70 per cent.
Hans, a petroleum and liquid chemicals storage and logistics firm, has a five-year call option to buy the remaining 30 per cent from Templewater for HK$1.72 billion.
Citybus operates a fleet of more than 1,700 buses, which are deployed on more than 200 routes, serving around a third of total passenger journeys in Hong Kong.
The franchise bus firm has a goal to transform its entire diesel-powered fleet to zero-emission vehicles by 2045, five years ahead of the Hong Kong government’s target to achieve carbon neutrality.
The firm put the city’s first hydrogen-powered double decker bus into operation in February, with plans to launch at least four more this year.
The bus was co-designed by Citybus and Wisdom with heavy-duty air-conditioning and slope-climbing capabilities to suit Hong Kong’s long summers, steeply inclined roads and busy routes, said Hans chairman An.
The consortium will work together to lobby the Hong Kong government to provide financial support to accelerate the adoption of hydrogen buses in Hong Kong, which can be shown to prospective overseas clients, he said.
“The Hong Kong government has done a lot to facilitate the electrification of public buses, including a plan to make legislative amendments early next year to enable mass production, storage, transport and application of hydrogen fuel,” An said. “What we really need to make it a success are financial incentives to accelerate the fleet transformation.”
Citybus’ hydrogen bus costs about HK$6 million, nearly twice the price of a diesel bus, An noted.
The Hong Kong government is expected to unveil its hydrogen development strategy by next month.
Last March, Bravo submitted a bid for a contract to operate a set of public bus routes in Singapore, said Hans’ CEO Yang Dong, adding that the results of the tender have not yet been announced.
The city state has implemented a competitive bus contracting model since 2016, under which the government has taken over ownership of all buses and depots from four operators, to lower the entry barrier.
“While the Singapore government owns the buses, we want to try to convince them to convert to our hydrogen buses,” Yang said.