international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124

Available at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he

Lessons learned from infrastructure

operation in the CUTE project

K. Stolzenburga,*, V. Tsatsamib, H. Grubelc

a
PLANET GbR Engineering and Consulting, Donnerschweer Strasse 89/91, 26123 Oldenburg, Germany
b
BP International Ltd, Chertsey Road, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex TW16 7LN, United Kingdom
c
Vattenfall Europe New Energy GmbH, Überseering 12, 22297 Hamburg, Germany

article info abstract

Article history:
Received 13 November 2007
Received in revised form
16 June 2008
Accepted 21 June 2008
Available online 19 September 2008
Keywords:
Hydrogen in transportation
Hydrogen infrastructure
On-site hydrogen generation
Water electrolysis
Steam methane reforming
Hydrogen refuelling stations
Assessment framework
Technology validation
Performance indicators
The project CUTE (Clean Urban Transport for Europe) comprised the operation of 27 fuel
cell buses and their hydrogen infrastructures for two years under everyday conditions.
This paper focuses on the experiences with on-site hydrogen infrastructure operation in
CUTE. Every site had a hydrogen refuelling station (350 bar rated pressure), and most of the
facilities included a plant for generation of the fuel (steam methane reforming or water
electrolysis). Qualitative and quantitative performance indicators such as system avail-
ability, root causes for downtime and hydrogen losses are discussed. Problems during the
operating phase are outlined and challenges for future work are highlighted.
In general, the station units and on-site electrolysers performed well. The on-site steam
reformers did not. Hydrogen compressors and dispensing equipment turned out to be the
most critical components of the station units.
ª 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.

1. Introduction
1.1. Project outline and scope of this paper
The CUTE project aimed at pollution-free local public transport
and at reducing the dependence on crude oil. Its main objective
was to demonstrate fuel cell buses and their hydrogen supply
infrastructures, proving their reliability in regular service. 27
buses were running in nine European cities, three per site. This
ensured a wide range of operating conditions in terms of
climate, topography, and traffic. The nine cities were: Amster-
dam, Barcelona, Hamburg, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Porto,
Stuttgart, and Stockholm. CUTE was the most ambitious field
trial of hydrogen and fuel cells in public transport worldwide.
Transportation with its ever-increasing demand for crude
oil contributes to climate change significantly. On the other
hand, hydrogen – from renewable energy sources – and fuel
cells have been identified among the portfolio of technologies
that can address the emerging energy and climate change
problems. From this perspective, CUTE can be regarded as
a milestone on the way to sustainable mobility by displaying
the feasibility of these novel technologies at significant scale.
The project comprised two phases: Design and construc-
tion took place from November 2001 until May/December

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 441 85051; fax: þ49 441 88057.
E-mail address: k.stolzenburg@planet-energie.de (K. Stolzenburg).
0360-3199/$ – see front matter ª 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.06.035
 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124
2003, depending on the site. The operating phase then lasted
for two years in each city. The project followed a comprehen-
sive approach, covering also environmental and economic
studies, training of staff as well as education and dissemina-
tion programmes.
This paper concentrates on aspects of the on-site hydrogen
infrastructure. More information on the overall project and its
results can be found in the final project report [1]. Saxe et al.
carried out an energy system analysis of the fuel cell buses [2].
A life cycle assessment study was performed by Faltenbacher
[3]. A report on the attitude towards hydrogen fuel cell buses
was compiled by Saxe et al. [4].
The scope of this paper is not to give a full account of all
operating details of each of the sites but to provide an over-
view of findings and learnings, and to compare performance
figures. Furthermore, conclusions for future complex multi-
site demonstration activities are drawn.
Girón [5] presented a thorough evaluation of the hydrogen
refuelling installation in Madrid.
Numerous studies of hydrogen infrastructure for the
transport sector have been published. Many of them focus on
strategies for the build-up of infrastructure for large numbers
of fuel cell cars, often in a particular country or region, and on
the cost involved (for example Melaina for the US [6] and
Mercuri et al. for Italy [7]). They frequently aim to contribute to
overcome the chicken-and-egg problem of ‘‘no hydrogen
infrastructure, therefore, no demand for hydrogen vehicles’’
and ‘‘no hydrogen vehicles, therefore, no incentive to build
a hydrogen infrastructure’’. Apart from this rather global
perspective, there is also some literature concerned with
developing infrastructure at a project level and with vehicles
other than cars, in particular buses, such as Shayegan et al. [8].
Agnolucci [9] has recently presented a paper that reviews
about 30 quantitative studies with regard to the approaches
that authors take in terms of infrastructure cost and layout.
He claims that technological issues can be accommodated
within the existing technical knowledge and industrial prac-
tice, and that cost is the main obstacle. Other authors take
a similar stance. Baykara [10] judges most hydrogen energy
technologies as matured enough for implementation. The
view that technology is not a major issue also seems to be
shared by authors who have modelled hydrogen infrastruc-
ture at the project level, such as Joffe et al. [11] and Vidueira
et al. [12].1
However, there is little evidence in the literature that
hydrogen infrastructure technology is in fact as mature as it is
assumed to be. Detailed experiences, learnings and quanti-
tative findings from the operation of hydrogen refuelling
infrastructure do not seem to have been published recently.
Hekkert et al. [13] have investigated research projects and
patents related to hydrogen technology for mobile applica-
tions in Germany over the period 1974–2000. One of their key
findings is that infrastructure and refuelling attracted rather
little interest in terms of the number of projects carried out
and of patents filed.
1 This power came from remote sites via the public grid. Barce-
Vidueria et al. showed the feasibility of PV autonomous supply
of hydrogen for the CUTE buses in Madrid. This system was not
implemented, though. Reforming of natural gas was employed
instead [5].
7115
Given that Germany is a ‘‘frontrunner’’ in the European
Union in the amount of hydrogen research and development
projects, as Hekkert et al. observed, the situation is likely to be
similar throughout the EU. This would explain the lack of rele-
vant publications, at least from this region. On the other hand, it
raises further questions as to whether there is a solid back-
ground to the view expressed in many of the above studies that
hydrogen (refuelling) technology seems to be ‘‘in place’’.
This paper provides a factual basis of results and learnings
from refuelling infrastructure operation. The findings are not
materially impacted by the circumstance that the infrastruc-
ture was designed to serve fuel cell buses rather than cars. To
the contrary, as buses from captive fleets put higher daily
loads on the stations, this can help to make the strong and
weak points of the installations more visible.
1.2. Hydrogen infrastructures: objectives and
considerations
The main project objectives in the infrastructure domain
comprised:
 Building and operating a hydrogen supply system in each of
the nine cities following individual approaches
 Ensuring a reliable fuel supply to the buses in terms of
quantity, pressure and purity
 Learning about the strengths and weaknesses of the
installations and their components.
Fig. 1 shows a generalised schematic of the CUTE infra-
structure facilities. Hydrogen was generated on site or supplied
by truck from external sources. It was compressed, stored, and
on demand dispensed to the buses. Table 1 gives an overview of
the nine installations. Details are explained in the following.
Most of the infrastructure facilities were located in a bus
depot. Some bus operators owned and managed the infrastruc-
ture themselves. Others partnered with a third party, usually an
energy company, and only purchased the refuelled hydrogen.
Hydrogen refuelling installations could hardly be bought
off the shelf from one supplier, in particular, when they
included a unit for on-site hydrogen generation. Therefore, it
was a key consideration at most CUTE sites to select an energy
company/turn-key supplier that took responsibility for the
design and erection of the entire plant and chose appropriate
components according to the local requirements.
When the plant was situated in the bus depot, it was
important that there was no or little interference with day-to-
day business during installation and operation. Accordingly,
components were pre-assembled as much as possible and the
major units arrived skid-mounted or containerised at the site.
Space was scarce at most depots, so solutions with compact,
modular design had to be found.
Most sites opted for on-site generation of hydrogen (Table 1),
many of them with the alternative to employ external backup
delivery when necessary. Amsterdam, Hamburg and Stock-
holm solely used renewable energy for hydrogen production.
lona had a photovoltaic array on the station roof but this could
only contribute a small share of the power consumed. Most of
the power supply was based on the Spanish grid mix. All other
7116 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124

Fig. 1 – Generalised schematic of the CUTE hydrogen infrastructure facilities.

sites entirely relied on the power grid mix. In the cases of Madrid
and Stuttgart, this also applied to the delivery of natural gas
(hydrogen generation from steam reforming).
London was the only site with external supply and on-site
storage of liquid hydrogen (LH2). The hydrogen was vapour-
ised before entering the bus tank. The London hydrogen
station was located far from the bus depot to enable placing it
on the premises of a conventional petrol station.
The volumetric energy density of hydrogen is only about
30% that of natural gas, resulting in a reduced vehicle range. In
order to (partly) offset this drawback, an increased tank
pressure compared to natural gas vehicles was necessary.
This, in turn, also required a step forward in refuelling tech-
nology. CUTE was the first major trial which followed the
350 bar concept, compared to 200 bar for natural gas (and
previously also for hydrogen).
2. Characteristics of production units and
station units
The maximum load that had to be covered in terms of refu-
elling was about 40 kg per bus per day, therefore, requiring
120 kg to be supplied by the infrastructure facility daily. This
corresponds to 1335 Nm3 (normal cubic metres). An hourly
production rate of about 55 Nm3 could cover this load.
2.1. On-site electrolysis
Table 2 summarises the design data of the units employed in
CUTE. They all were pressurised alkaline water electrolysers.
Such electrolysers are produced in small numbers by several
manufacturers. They display high load flexibility. Operating
temperature is in the range of 70–80  C.
2.2. On-site steam reforming
Steam reforming of methane (natural gas) to produce
hydrogen and, as a by-product, carbon dioxide has been
a standard industrial process for decades, with production
rates up to 100,000 Nm3/h and efficiencies of more than 70%.
Small-scale units as required for CUTE were only at prototype
stage during the planning phase of the project.
Table 3 summarises the design data of the reformer units
in CUTE. These small devices possessed significantly lower

Table 1 – Characteristics of the CUTE infrastructure facilities.

Site Location of the facility Hydrogen supply External backup Power Refuelling
supply foreseen source type
(only relevant for
sites with on-site
generation)

Amsterdam Bus depot On-site electrolysis No Green Overflow/booster

Barcelona Bus depot On-site electrolysis Yes Grid mix þ Overflow/booster
PV on site
Hamburg Bus depot On-site electrolysis Yesa Green Overflow
London Conventional station, External (LH2) Grid mix LH2 vapourisation
60 min. from bus depot
Luxembourg Bus depot External Grid mix Overflow
Madrid Bus depot On-site steam Mix of on-site Grid mix Booster
methane reforming generation and
plus external external delivery
Porto Bus depot External Grid mix Overflow/booster
Stockholm Bus depot On-site electrolysis No Green Overflow/booster
Stuttgart Industrial site close to bus depot On-site steam methane reforming Yes Grid mix Overflow/booster

a External hydrogen delivery was not foreseen initially but only made possible when problems with the on-site production unit occurred.
 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124
Table 2 – Design data of the production units based on water electrolysis.
3
Production range (Nm /h)
Installed power (kW)
Rated power demand (stack and pumps) (kWh/Nm3)
Resulting efficiency (stack and pumps) (%)
Note that the installed powers given are the sums of the nominal powers of all consumers in the installations. They are not the powers to be
actually supplied in practice. This is illustrated by the following calculation for the power demand for the electrolysis process at rated capacity:
4.8 kWh/Nm3  60 Nm3/h ¼ 288 kW, thus substantially lower than the installed power.
efficiencies than industrial plants. Operating temperature was
in the range of 900  C.
The rated capacities of the two reformer units differ by
a factor of two:
 In Madrid, it was decided to rely on regular road supply of
hydrogen and on-site production in parallel. The design
capacity could, therefore, be determined below the rated
demand of the fuel cell buses. The idea behind this
approach was to accomplish long periods of reformer
operation at full load and a small number of start–stop
cycles, even when not all buses were in service.
 Stuttgart selected a larger unit in order to be able to cover
the load under any circumstances. This decision was based
on the expectation that the reformer could be operated
about as flexible as an electrolyser, with short start-up and
shut-down periods, not significantly affecting lifetime or
efficiency.
2.3. Station units
Refuelling of gaseous hydrogen can be accomplished in two
ways: By pressure differential (overflow refuelling) and by
a compressor charging the vehicle tank (booster refuelling).
Both modes can be combined in a sequence (overflow refuel-
ling followed by booster mode). Most CUTE sites used the
combined method (see Table 4). All sites with gaseous supply
needed a compressor for filling the station storage, denoted as
‘‘storage compressor’’ in Table 4. In some cases these storage
compressors were actually part of the on-site production unit.
Nevertheless, they are listed in Table 4 for completeness.
Note that the hydrogen on-site storage in Stockholm was
only 95 kg. The three buses could thus not be refuelled back-
to-back. The storage size was limited by the local approval
authority because the station was located close to residential
houses.
2.4. Performance indicators
For clarity and accuracy, the analysis distinguishes between
the on-site hydrogen production units on the one hand, as
installed at six out of nine sites (see Table 1), and the station
units installed at all sites on the other hand. Reference to
regular external hydrogen delivery is only made as far as it
affected the operation of the station units.
To capture the results from this complex project in an
appropriate way, an Assessment Framework [14] was
7117
Amsterdam Barcelona Hamburg Stockholm
15–60 15–60 30–60 15–60
400 400 390 400
4.8 þ/ 0.1 4.8 þ/ 0.1 4.8 þ/ 0.1 4.8 þ/ 0.1
63% 63% 63% 63%
developed that covers all elements of CUTE as outlined above.
It includes quantitative performance indicators but also
addresses qualitative aspects, specified for example in the
form of ‘‘guiding questions’’.2
A selected number of performance indicators is covered in
this paper:
A. Availability of the on-site production unit; defined as the ratio
of time that the unit was operational to the duration of the
evaluation period; ‘‘operational’’ meaning that the unit
was in operation or could have been operated if it had been
required; calculated by summing up all reported downtime
hours and subtracting them from the total evaluation
period.3
B. Causes for downtime of the on-site production unit; categories
of cause include scheduled maintenance, failure and
repair of major sub-units (such as compressors or
controls), and safety concerns (meaning that the station
unit was technically operational but for safety concerns
remained out of service); defined as the ratio of downtime
related to the individual categories to total downtime;
determined separately for systems with electrolysers and
steam reformers.
C. Electrical efficiency of on-site hydrogen generation (for sites
with electrolysers); defined as the ratio of the energy
content of the hydrogen produced to the total power
consumed for its production; power consumption based
on end energy; hydrogen energy content based on its net
calorific value.
D. (1) Thermal efficiency of on-site hydrogen generation (for sites
with steam reformers); defined as the ratio of the energy
content of the hydrogen produced to the energy content
of natural gas consumed for hydrogen production;
based on the net calorific values of both the gases.
D. (2) Overall efficiency of on-site hydrogen generation (for
sites with steam reformers); defined as the ratio of the
energy content of the hydrogen produced to sum of the
energy content of natural gas and of the electrical end
2
The CUTE Assessment Framework was not published.
However, many of its elements were adopted by the PREMIA
project for their Assessment Framework which is publicly avail-
able [15]. An outline of the CUTE Assessment Framework can be
found in [1].
3
The evaluation period is not for all sites identical with the two
years of operation. Only months with complete data sets could be
evaluated. In particular, for the first months of the operating
phase, such complete data sets were not available in some cases.
7118 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124

3.1. Performance of the hydrogen production units:

Table 3 – Design data of the production units based on
steam methane reforming. electrolysis

Madrid Stuttgart
The average availabilities (indicator A) of the electrolysers in
3
Production range (Nm /h) 30–50 50–100 Amsterdam and Stockholm were well above 90%, as expected
Installed thermal power (natural gas) (kW) ca. 280 ca. 500 (Table 5). In Hamburg, material problems caused leakage from
Rated thermal energy demand (kWh/Nm3) 4.86 4.65
a pipe in the lye loop. This reduced the unit’s availability
Resulting thermal efficiency (%) 62% 65%
below 70%.
Installed auxiliary electrical power (kW) 45 89
Leakage in Hamburg originated from crack corrosion on
Note that the installed powers given are the sums of the nominal the oxygen side of the lye loop. The pipe material (AISI 316L)
powers of all consumers in the installations but not the powers to
had been used under similar conditions previously (30% KOH
be actually supplied, as explained in Table 2.
concentration, lye saturated with oxygen, temperature about
80  C). However, under the operating conditions of this
energy consumed for hydrogen production; based on particular unit, the use of AISI 316L turned out not to be
the net calorific values of both gases. appropriate. It took considerable time until a suitable substi-
E. Availability of the station unit; defined as for the production tute type of steel (Douplex SAF 2205) could be identified.
unit (see indicator A) Moreover, the new material was laborious to handle. Several
F. Causes for downtime of the station units; defined as for the pipes in the unit had to be replaced. Pipes with an inner
production unit (indicator B) diameter of less than 20 mm could not be welded and had to
G. Specific power consumption of the station unit (for compres- be connected using special fittings. Larger pipes had to be
sion, dispensing etc.); defined as the power consumption nickel coated after welding to prevent corrosion.
per unit hydrogen dispensed; power consumption based The lye leakage in Hamburg was dominant in terms of
on end energy; hydrogen energy content based on its net downtime of all four electrolysis units, accounting for 75% of
calorific value. all downtime hours (indicator B; Table 6). Hydrogen
H. Specific hydrogen losses; defined as the sum of the amounts compressors caused about 8%; all other root causes contrib-
of hydrogen generated on-site and delivered from external uted less than 5% each.
sources, minus the amount dispensed, divided by the sum The electrical efficiency of the production units (indicator
of the amounts of hydrogen generated on-site and deliv- C; Table 5) in Amsterdam and Hamburg was determined as
ered from external sources. 60% and 58%, respectively. Note that these figures cannot be
directly compared with those in Table 1. The latter include
power for electrolysis process and pumps but not other
auxiliaries, as the formers do. In Barcelona and Stockholm
only the entire site (including the station unit) was metered,
3. Results and learnings from operation so indicator C could not be determined.

Over the two years of operation at each site, the 27 CUTE buses
covered a distance of 841,123 km, providing service for more
than 4 million passengers during 62,545 operating hours. The
buses were refuelled more than 8900 times and consumed
over 192 tonnes of hydrogen.
About 78.5 tonnes of hydrogen were generated on-site via
electrolysis and 42.5 tonnes based on steam methane
reforming. More than 56% of the amounts generated on site
were derived from renewable energy.
3.2. Performance of the hydrogen production units:
steam reforming
The average availabilities of the reformer units were rather
low (indicator A, Table 5). Downtime in Stuttgart was mainly
caused by a single issue. Process temperatures turned out to
be higher than those anticipated from numerical simulations
when the unit was designed in a compact manner. Even part

Table 4 – Characteristics of the refuelling station units. Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Porto had one compressor that could
operate in both modes, i.e. charge the station storage and boost vehicle tank pressure.
Site Hydrogen storage Refuelling type Compressor type Rated capacity (Nm3/h)
size (kg)
Storage compressor Booster compressor

Amsterdam 250 Overflow/booster Hydraulic 300

Barcelona 150 Overflow/booster Hydraulic 300
Hamburg 400 Overflow Diaphragm 62
London 3,200 LH2 vapourisation Cryogenic pump 900
Luxembourg 500 Overflow Diaphragm 60
Madrid 360 Booster Diaphragm/diaphragm 50 2,400
Porto 172 Overflow/booster Hydraulic 300
Stockholm 95 Overflow/booster Diaphragm/hydraulic 60 525
Stuttgart 282 Overflow/booster Hydraulic/hydraulic 100 5,380
 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124 7119

Table 5 – Results by indicator for the on-site hydrogen production units.

Indicator Availability Electrical Thermal Overall Remarks
efficiency efficiency efficiency
(electrolysis) (reforming) (reforming)

A C D (1) D (2)

Amsterdam 99% 60%

Barcelona Not available Not available Availability: incomplete data basis;
performance probably similar
to Stockholm.
Efficiency: On-site hydrogen
production unit and station unit
were not metered individually.
Hamburg 68% 58%
London Not applicable
Luxembourg Not applicable
Madrid 18% 43% 38%
Porto Not applicable
Stockholm 95% Not available On-site hydrogen production
unit and station unit were not
metered individually.
Stuttgart 57% 39% 35%

of the supporting construction was damaged. Appropriate
materials that could withstand the actual level of temperature
had to be identified, components built or ordered, respec-
tively, and replaced. About half a year of operating time was
lost.
In Madrid there was a series of problems affecting almost
every major component of the production unit. Due to design
errors, the reactor tubes had to be replaced twice after
cracking and bursting, respectively. Leaking valves in the
hydrogen purification unit (employing pressure swing
adsorption) caused more downtime. This was due to a design
problem concerning the packing. Issues with the hydrogen
compressor further reduced availability severely. Part of the
problems also was long delivery time for spare parts. A full
account of operating the reformer in Madrid has been pub-
lished by Girón [5].
About 44% of all downtime of the two production units
based on steam reforming were caused by the reformers
themselves (indicator B; Table 6), about 21% by hydrogen
compressors, some 11% by other types of compressors, and 7%
by cooling units.
The reformers could not be started up and shut down as
easily as expected. Due to the specific (compact) design of the
units, the heating phase was long and energy consuming
(Stuttgart: about 50 h from ambient to rated temperature
using nitrogen as a heating agent that was ‘‘piped’’ through

Table 6 – Share in downtime hours of the on-site electrolysers and steam methane reformers (indicator B), and share in
downtime hours of the station units (indicator F); categorised by cause; across all sites.
Indicator Production unit: on- Production unit: on- Station Remarks
site electrolysis site reforming unit

B B F

Transformer and rectifier 3.6% Not applicable

Water conditioning 0.5% 0.8%
Cooling 2.2% 6.9% Cooling of production unit excluding hydrogen
compressors.
Air or process gas compressor 0.6% 1.5%
Electrolysis stack/Reformer 0.3% 43.8%
Hydrogen purification 0.1% 11.4%
Hydrogen compressors 8.1% 20.8% 47.1%
Production unit 7.6% Lack of fuel due to stop of production.
External delivery 4.1% Lack of fuel due to trailers arriving late or
repairs.
Storage 0.1%
Dispensing 6.2%
Control and electronics 0.8% 0.4% 7.2%
Safety devices and alarms 75.0% 0% 0.8% Hydrogen leaks of dispensing equipment
including leaks considered under ‘‘Dispensing’’.
Safety concerns 0% 0% 13.7%
Maintenance 3.0% 3.5% 2.3%
Miscellaneous 5.8% 10.9% 10.9%
7120 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124
the reformer) and frequent thermal cycling increased wear
and tear (Madrid, in particular).
Avoiding start–stop cycles was an issue particularly in
Stuttgart, where, unlike Madrid, the production capacity of the
reformer unit exceeded the maximum daily demand of the
buses and where, unlike Madrid, trucking out surplus
hydrogen was not foreseen. Therefore, the Stuttgart reformer
was operated continuously, usually at a low production rate in
order to match fuel consumption as closely as possible, i.e. to
avoid overproduction as much as possible.
A consequence of operating at part-load in Stuttgart
was a severe loss of thermal efficiency (indicator D (1);
Table 5). The numerous start–stop cycles for repairs and
test runs in Madrid had a similar effect. The actual
average thermal efficiency for Stuttgart was 39% compared
to 65% rated. In Madrid, only 42% were accomplished on
average instead of rated 62%. When additionally consid-
ering the power needed for operating the reformer units,
efficiency reduces by another 4–5% (indicator D (2); Table
5). On the other hand, when the Madrid reformer could be
operated at stable conditions for longer periods, over 65%
efficiency was reached, thus better than what had been
stated as rated [5].
Another consequence of continuous hydrogen production
in Stuttgart was that surplus hydrogen had to be vented to the
atmosphere whenever the storage of the station unit was full.
Therefore, only part of the hydrogen produced from steam
reforming could be utilised (see Section 3.4).
3.3. Performance of the station units
On average, the station units were available for 87% of the
time over the two years of operation (indicator E; Table 7). All
units achieved availabilities of 80% or better with the excep-
tion of Barcelona.
Table 6 displays the root causes for downtime in terms of
their share in total downtime hours (indicator F). It shows that
the hydrogen compressors were the most critical component
with regard to downtime. The compressors broke down for
various reasons or they affected hydrogen purity. A major
factor for the comparatively low availability of the station unit
in Barcelona (indicator E; Table 7) was compressor issues.
The second most critical components were the dispensers,
namely their nozzle, hose, and breakaway coupling. They did
not, in fact, cause a great deal of downtime hours due to failure
or repair. However, in the wake of incidents at some sites, their
safety was discussed. This made some station operators to close
down their facility, thus reducing availability, and became the
main contributor to downtime induced by safety concerns
(Table 6). In summary, ‘‘dispensing’’ and ‘‘safety concerns’’
accounted for about 20% of all station unit downtime.
Incidents included hydrogen leaking from nozzles and
hoses or from the connections between them, respectively.
These resulted in minor modifications of the nozzles and
replacement of hoses. It must be noted that hoses for high
pressures were on the market at the time but that hoses
specifically designed for hydrogen have not yet been devel-
oped. At some occasions, breakaway couplings popped off
without obvious reason. It was then found that they had not
been mounted correctly.
The instructions for installing, operating and maintaining
nozzles, hoses and breakaways were revised and extended, in
order to ensure correct handling and to restore the confidence
of the personnel operating the equipment. In some cases, staff
had simply been scared by unexpected component behaviour.
Regular leakage tests were introduced or their frequency
increased, respectively.
The major safety concern, however, was the fact that one
of the turn-key station suppliers questioned the durability of
a component of the nozzle in a hydrogen environment. This
caused some operators to reduce the maximum pressure
during refuelling temporarily or, as mentioned, shut down
the infrastructure installation entirely. Expert advice was
obtained from the infrastructure suppliers and operators,
and the statements were discussed in detail. Consequently,
the concerns could be resolved and operation got back to
normal.
Some early safety concerns originated from misunder-
standings in communication between the nine sites and
resulted in over-reactions in the attempt to prevent any risk to
personnel. A Task Force for Safety and Security was setup in
order to improve the flow of information in terms of speed and
accuracy, also in cooperation with technology suppliers. The
work of this Task Force turned out to be a major element in
preventing disruption throughout the operating phase of
CUTE.
Non-availability of the station due to downtime of the
production unit (therefore, lack of fuel; see Table 6) mainly
occurred in Stockholm and initially also in Hamburg. In
Hamburg this was resolved by enabling external backup
supply. Downtime under ‘‘external supply’’ represents fresh
trailers arriving late and repairs to the docking station.
The specific power consumption per unit of hydrogen
dispensed (indicator G; Table 7) ranged from 0.06 kWh/Nm3 to
0.82 kWh/Nm3. The wide range and high upper threshold is
partly due to the fact that at some sites nightly illumination of
the facility grounds was metered together with the actual
operation of the station unit. This was discovered late within
the operating phase, so no additional meters were installed. It
follows that the figures are not fully comparable between the
sites. Still, it can be noted that the installations with external
delivery of gaseous hydrogen (Madrid, Luxembourg and Porto
at 200 bar pressure) required significantly less power per unit
of hydrogen dispensed than those with on-site generation.
This could be expected because part of the energy needed for
compression was deployed at the central production facility
rather than locally. At the locations with on-site generation,
the station units received the hydrogen at only 10–15 bar from
the production units and, thus, required more energy for
compression (except Madrid, as mentioned4). The London site
with external delivery of liquid hydrogen consumed energy
for vapourisation before dispensing.
4
In the context of indicator G, Madrid can be regarded as a site
with external hydrogen supply at 200 bar. One reason is that, due
to the low availability of the production unit, the site had to rely
on external sources most of the time. Second, the Madrid
production unit had its own hydrogen compressor and supplied
the gas to the station at 200 bar.
 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124 7121

Table 7 – Results for station units (indicators E and G) and for the entire facilities (indicator H).
Indicator Availability of Specific power Comments Specific hydrogen Remarks
the station unit consumption of the losses
station unit (kWh/Nm3)

E G H

Amsterdam 97% 0.50 7%

Barcelona 59% Not available On-site hydrogen production 20% Hydrogen contamination
unit and station unit were not by compressor
metered individually.
Hamburg 86% 0.58 11% Hydrogen contamination
by compressor; otherwise: 9%
London 98% 0.49 69% Lower demand than planned
for caused high level of boil-off
Luxembourg 91% 0.16 29% Metering problem
Madrid 86% 0.06 9% Losses due to hydrogen
purification (PSA) not included
Porto 80% 0.16 9%
Stockholm 96% Not available On-site hydrogen production 8%
unit and station unit were
not metered individually.
Stuttgart 99% 0.82 46% High losses due to surplus
production and venting;
otherwise: 6%

3.4. Hydrogen losses
About 274.5 tonnes of hydrogen were supplied during the
operating phase, some 121 tonnes produced on site (see
above) and 153.5 tonnes coming from external sources.
However, only 192 tonnes were refuelled to the buses. Thus,
more than 80 tonnes were lost.
When assessing the individual values for hydrogen losses
in Table 7 (indicator H), it must be borne in mind that the on-
site generation units need some of the produced amounts to
regenerate the purification modules periodically.
Hydrogen generated by water electrolysis at first is satu-
rated with water and, therefore, must be dried to accomplish
the specified purity level (here: 99.999% or better). Usually two
drier columns are installed (or two sets of drier columns):
While one is operating (at rated pressure, i.e. about 10 bar in
the CUTE units), the drying agent in the second is regenerated.
This requires part of the dry hydrogen which is depressurised
to increase its adsorption capacity. It carries away the mois-
ture and is vented to the atmosphere. Typically 5% of the
generated hydrogen is consumed in this way.5
Downstream steam reformer tubes, pressure swing
absorption units (PSA) serve a similar purpose but also purify
the hydrogen from, e.g. carbon compounds being leftovers
from the reformer reactions. This process, including regen-
eration of the adsorber beds, is much more complex compared
to mere hydrogen drying. In industrial reformer plants, typi-
cally 15% of the hydrogen is lost in this way.6 Note that the
5
It must be noted that this hydrogen loss mechanism does not
reduce the rated amount of hydrogen supplied by the production
unit to the station unit, for example 60 Nm3/h in case of the
electrolysis CUTE installations. The production units, both
reformers and electrolysers, were designed to be capable of
generating the rated amounts plus those needed for regeneration.
6
After all, this tail gas can be employed energetically to provide
heat for the reformer reaction.
hydrogen loss figure for Madrid in Table 7 excludes this loss
mechanism and is based on the amount of hydrogen actually
delivered to the station unit by the production unit.
Further losses occur due to occasional purging of system
components (for example after maintenance work) and due to
background leakage. Therefore, sites with no or few problems
during the operating phase, such as Amsterdam and Stock-
holm, display 5–10% losses.
Sites with severe component failures suffered a higher
level of loss. For example, in Hamburg the storage had to be
emptied once after rupture of the compressor membrane and
subsequent hydrogen contamination. In doing so, about
400 kg of hydrogen were vented. Excluding this particular
event would reduce the loss factor to less than 9%. The high
figure for Luxembourg is probably due to a metering issue.
This could not be fully verified, though.
Special circumstances must be considered for London and
Stuttgart:
 The liquid hydrogen storage in London was designed for
a daily withdrawal of 120 kg for refuelling the buses. The
actual consumption pattern, however, was about 60 kg, five
days a week on average. For this reason, substantial boil-off
of liquid hydrogen occurred. The level of losses could have
been lower, if the design consumption pattern had been
realised in practice.
 The main loss mechanism in Stuttgart was caused by the
fact that the reformer could not start and stop hydrogen
generation as flexibly as originally projected. Instead of
intermittent operation, the reformer had thus to be oper-
ated continuously, at the lowest possible production rate,
even at times when the hydrogen storage was full, as
mentioned above. This resulted in the excess hydrogen
vented to the atmosphere. Over a period of six months when
the reformer was in repair and the site relied on external
supply, hydrogen losses amounted to only 6%.
7122 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124
4. Conclusions
The four on-site production units with electrolysers performed
well in terms of availability (indicators A and B). In Amster-
dam, Barcelona and Stockholm no major issues had to be
addressed. The leakage/material problem encountered in
Hamburg was dominant in terms of downtime hours. It could
not be foreseen based on previous experiences and, therefore,
highlights the necessity and value of demonstration under
everyday operating conditions. It also demonstrates that great
care should be taken while choosing component materials
even when only slightly modifying operating conditions
compared to units that were previously designed and built.
The actual energy efficiency data for the entire production
units (indicator C) cannot directly be compared with the rated
figures for stacks and pumps in Table 2, as explained. More-
over, at two out of four sites, the production unit was not
metered individually. Still, the two available values for
Amsterdam and Hamburg (for the entire production units) are
not much lower than the corresponding rated ones (for stacks
and pumps only). This is a positive outcome.
Both on-site steam methane reformers clearly did not fulfil
expectations in terms of availability (indicators A and B). This
holds true for the reformer tubes, i.e. the core of the unit, as
well as for auxiliaries, as the case of Madrid has shown.
Concerning the reformer tubes, also here care must be taken
in choosing component materials appropriately and designing
the processes. Manufacturers have learned their lessons in
this respect. They upgraded the CUTE prototype installations
during the trial and will consider their learnings for the next
generation of small-scale reformers of compact design.
Energy efficiency (indicator D) under part-load conditions
turned out to be far below rated figures. Also start–stop cycles
were cumbersome and energy consuming. There certainly is
potential to improve both. On the other hand, it is question-
able whether small-scale reformers – given their high process
temperatures – can match the flexibility that state-of-the-art
electrolysers of the same production capacity display. This
must be considered when selecting hydrogen on-site genera-
tion technology and defining rated capacities.
Contingency arrangements for external hydrogen backup
delivery turned out to be vital.
With regard to availability of the nine station units (indica-
tors E and F), the hydrogen compressors turned out to be the
most critical component. Also the hydrogen compressor in the
Madrid production unit caused a significant share in down-
time; see indicator B in Table 6. This may be surprising at first
sight because such units have been in use for decades in
industry. However, industrial plants usually operate contin-
uously and, thus, also the compressors as part of the
production process rarely have to perform stop–start
sequences. At the CUTE sites on the other hand, in particular
the booster compressors were started only for some minutes
in order to refuel the buses up to rated level. Also the storage
compressors stopped whenever the on-site tank was full
overnight or during weekends. Frequent cycling due to inter-
mittent operation increases wear and tear, and thus, suscep-
tibility to damage. Therefore, it is advisable to shorten
inspection and maintenance intervals compared to what is
recommended by manufacturers. This could be of benefit for
all components of the on-site hydrogen infrastructure, at least
during the early stages of operation.
Damage is an issue in particular when it leads to contami-
nation of the hydrogen, for example, due to defective seals.
Development work to meet this challenge is ongoing. For
example, so-called ionic compressors are being tested.7 They
compress the hydrogen using an ionic liquid that has no vapour
pressure and, therefore, cannot deteriorate hydrogen purity.
CUTE was the first major project that trialled 350 bar
refuelling. Moreover, the stations were designed in a way that
enabled non-engineers to take care of refuelling. A short
training was sufficient. No meters had to be monitored during
the process, etc. The fact that the buses were refuelled almost
9000 times without major incidents can clearly be seen as
a success. 350 bar refuelling is feasible and has become
a standard procedure. The incidents as outlined in Section 3.3
were addressed appropriately. Still, there is some way to go to
accomplish dispensing equipment fit for the use for retail
customers. In order to establish hydrogen as a ‘‘trustworthy
fuel’’ in the public arena, preventing any risk of irritating
customers by unexpected noises or events or even small
hydrogen leaks must be further taken care of. This includes
precise and proven procedures for the installation and main-
tenance of dispensing equipment.
The specific power consumption of those station units
(indicator G) with on-site hydrogen generation was rather
high in some cases. Here, it would have been desirable to
meter the actual power demand of the compressors and of
further major consumers individually in order to identify
optimisation potentials in a systematic manner and exclude
the demand for illumination, etc. This remains a task for
future projects.
Given that all CUTE infrastructure facilities were proto-
types their level of performance was satisfying on the whole.
From an overall perspective, enhanced system integration,
simplification, and standardisation of the infrastructure
facilities are required, especially for plants that comprise on-
site generation and station units. Although all CUTE cities had
a turn-key supplier for their on-site hydrogen infrastructure,
the major components usually came from individual manu-
facturers. This often caused a poor integration of modules, for
example, separate controls for hydrogen production units and
stations, or in a mismatch between components. System
development should also consider, to a greater extent, the
special needs associated with variable load patterns, inter-
mittent operation, and part-load conditions.
A basic level of standardisation for hydrogen refuelling
facilities will also enable turn-key suppliers to choose
components from a range of manufacturers and, therefore,
should help to reduce the investment cost and footprint,
increase efficiency and advance overall performance.
In order to improve system availability, infrastructure
suppliers and operators need to develop clear concepts of how
to react rapidly to unforeseen problems with the installations,
especially in crucial ramp-up phases of operation. This need is
illustrated by the safety concerns regarding dispensing
7
One ionic compressor is operated in Berlin in the ongoing
HyFLEET:CUTE project [16].
 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 7114–7124
equipment and how they were resolved, as discussed in
Section 3.3. Accordingly, agreements with component
manufacturers and local contractors need to be in place. They
must consider the special demands stemming from multi-site
and multi-country projects, such as language and culture. The
work of the Task Force for Safety and Security is an element of
how this can be addressed. It shows that rapid and efficient
communication is a major success factor in complex
demonstration projects such as CUTE.
The facilities in Amsterdam and Barcelona possessed
(almost) identical components. However, the performance
displayed by their station units was remarkably different. This
points to the need for ‘‘fleet trials’’ of hydrogen infrastructure
units, i.e. installations that share the same technology and are
operated concurrently at different sites in order to explore
their durability under diverse operating conditions.
Furthermore, hydrogen losses and their root mechanism
must be addressed. Most CUTE sites displayed a level of loss
between 5% and 10% (indicator H). No operator of a conven-
tional refuelling station would or could allow this for petrol or
diesel. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that
hydrogen is a gaseous fuel, e.g. of low viscosity, that has
different properties than liquid fuels. Moreover, very high
purity/purification requirements must be met for the use of
hydrogen in fuel cells. The question remains open and is to be
answered in the future whether a certain level of hydrogen
loss must be accepted also in ‘‘mature’’ commercial
installations.
The technical analyses regarding critical components and
performance issues are well in line with statements from the
bus and station operators when consulted about their views
on advances and issues arising from the trials. Bus operators
that had previous experiences with natural gas powered
vehicles and refuelling installations pointed out that there
were no fundamental differences between natural gas and
hydrogen infrastructures.
The significance of some of the numerical findings of this
analysis is hampered by the fact that the raw data were not
obtained in a harmonised manner across all sites. Issues with
evaluating power consumption due to a lack of separate
meters for the production units at some sites (indicator C) and
for individual major consumers inside the station units
(indicator G) document the importance of developing
a coherent concept for data acquisition and evaluation and
translating it into hardware requirements at a very early stage
of a project. This holds true in particular when performance
shall be benchmarked between several facilities from various
manufacturers or even between individual demonstration
projects. Under CUTE, the planning period was very tight, so
development of the Assessment Framework on the one hand,
and system design and installation on the other hand took
place in parallel and not consecutively. In future projects, an
assessment framework should be defined and agreed by all
relevant partners before any hardware or data acquisition
equipment is ordered.
Another important factor for significant inter-site bench-
marking is that there should be one person at each site who is
responsible for the capture of all data. These persons in charge
must be trained in a joint workshop before the start of oper-
ation. The objectives of the data collection procedure must be
7123
transparent to them and misunderstandings regarding the
meaning of individual indicators and their data bases must be
avoided as much as possible. Again, diversities regarding
vocational training background, language and culture must be
considered.
Most of the CUTE sites have continued operation of their
buses and infrastructure for a third year in the successor
project HyFLEET:CUTE. HyFLEET:CUTE involves the opera-
tion of 47 hydrogen powered buses, fuel cell buses as well
as buses powered by hydrogen internal combustion
engines, in 10 cities on three continents [16]. As regards
infrastructure, one aim is to refine the performance
analysis.8
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all those at the nine project
sites who collected and supplied the operating data.
The CUTE project was co-funded by the European
Commission under its Fifth Framework Programme for
Research, Technological Development and Demonstration
Activities (contract no. NNE5/2000/113).
The HyFLEET:CUTE project is co-funded by the European
Commission under its Sixth Framework Programme for
Research and Technological Development (contract no. TREN/
05/FP6EN/S07.52298/019991).
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