Shepherd and Wedderburn advises on ground-breaking hydrogen bus demonstration project

Leading UK law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn has acted as adviser to BOC in its work on the Aberdeen Hydrogen Bus Project, a consortium of public and private sector interests, of which BOC is a key partner.

The Project, which will deliver ten hydrogen fuel cell buses to the city of Aberdeen has already achieved a major milestone with the delivery last month of the first four buses. The full fleet, expected to be entirely operational by 2015, is to be re-fuelled on a daily basis at Scotland's first commercial-scale hydrogen re-fuelling station located in Aberdeen city. The station, which will be owned and operated by BOC, a member of The Linde Group, is scheduled for commissioning in October and will have the capacity to produce over 130 tonnes per annum of high purity hydrogen on site from a 1MW electrolyser, making it the largest and most carbon efficient facility of its type in the UK.

The Aberdeen Hydrogen Bus Project is the largest bus demonstration project in Europe and its aim is to validate the technical, economic and environmental benefits of large scale hydrogen production and transport technologies and may in due course be a template for other projects across the UK.

The Aberdeen Hydrogen Bus Project partners and funders are: BOC; Aberdeen City Council; European funding throughThe Fuel Cell and Joint Undertaking (FCHJU); the Scottish Government; Scottish Enterprise; Technology Strategy Board; Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution; Van Hool; First Group Aberdeen; Stagecoach; Scottish Gas Networks (SGN); and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG).