CUTE

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CUTE ( Engl. For "sweet", "nice", acronym for Clean Urban Transport for Europe , dt .: clean urban transport for Europe ) was a Europe-wide, with funds from the EU subsidized development program including for hydrogen-powered public transport. Buses are particularly affected. Mercedes-Benz Citaro BZs operated with fuel cells are used.

The project started in 2001 and ended in May 2006 with a congress in Hamburg.

Part of this program are projects of the transport companies in major European cities such as the Hamburger Hochbahn with the name HH2 . HH stands for " Hanseatic City of Hamburg" and H 2 for hydrogen.

In the nine cities participating in the program, Hamburg, London, Barcelona, ​​Stockholm, Porto, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Madrid, three buses each were operated with fuel cells . The cities were each selected in order to examine differences in terms of climatic and topographical situation as well as traffic volume. As part of the ECTOS (Ecological City TranspOrt System) program, which was carried out in parallel, CO 2 -free local public transport was tested in Reykjavík, Iceland .

After the end of the project, the CUTE consortium had submitted an application to the EU for a project extension. At the same time, another consortium on the same topic had applied for a project proposal for a project entitled HyFLEET. Due to the overlapping of content and to avoid double funding, the EU Commission decided to merge the two project applications (a so-called "merger") under the project name HyFLEET: CUTE (for Hydrogen Fleet CUTE , German: hydrogen-driven CUTE fleet ). In Hamburg, the capacity was increased to nine vehicles because Stuttgart was abandoned as a project location in CUTE by the then city administration (they saw no future in the technology and did not want to take over the costs for the continued operation of the H2 buses) and the vehicles Stuttgart were taken over by Hamburger Hochbahn AG.

On February 10, 2009, the HyFLEET: CUTE project received the European "Sustainable Energy Europe Research Award " in the "Demonstration and Implementation" category. However, the overall efficiency ( well-to-wheel ) of vehicles powered by hydrogen from eco-electricity is controversial, as a lot of electrical energy is required to produce and store hydrogen . The total energy consumption of the hydrogen buses used in 2006, taking into account the energy supply ( well-to-tank ), therefore corresponded to a diesel consumption of 100 liters per 100 kilometers. The third, significantly improved version has been in use since 2011. These are serial hybrid buses whose fuel cells work with up to 60% efficiency and which store the electricity in lithium-ion batteries . This enables purely electric driving and recuperation . The two wheel hub motors each have a continuous output of 60 kW and can provide up to 240 kW for a short time. The hydrogen consumption could be reduced by up to 50%, so that the overall efficiency improved significantly.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clean Urban Transport for Europe - Project No. NNE5-2000-00113 - Deliverable No. 8 - Final Report. (PDF) May 30, 2006, accessed on May 25, 2017 (English).
  2. ↑ Energy Systems Division wins Sustainable Energy Europe Award. TU Berlin , accessed on May 25, 2017 (for the HyFLEET: CUTE project on February 10, 2009).
  3. ↑ Angelika Hillmer: Hydrogen buses as power guzzlers. Hamburger Abendblatt , February 10, 2006, accessed on May 25, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Innovative fuel cell buses in regular service - maiden voyage. HHA , February 13, 2012, accessed May 25, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Technical data. HHA , archived from the original on November 10, 2012 ; Retrieved May 25, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Why the fuel cell bus is not a hydrogen bus. In: Blog. Rycon, August 23, 2011, accessed May 25, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Ulrich Knorra: The new fuel cell bus from Mercedes uses 50% less hydrogen. ATZonline, November 19, 2009, accessed May 25, 2017 .