Spanish city scraps €38m plan to buy 35 new hydrogen buses after court intervention

The Spanish city of Tarragona has cancelled plans to buy 35 hydrogen-powered buses after a court ruled that the initial tender was flawed.

In September 2022, local bus operator EMT Tarragona — owned by the city council, which was at the time led by the Republican Left of Catalonia party — approved a single €38.2m ($40.6m) tender for the supply of both 35 hydrogen buses (including maintenance and repair) and their H₂ supply.

The move was heralded by then EMT president Jordi Fortuny as “a new paradigm shift in public mobility… [and] an important turning point in the direction towards the city’s decarbonisation objectives”.

However, the tender only attracted one applicant, and another company focused on hydrogen supply company appealed against the decision to hold only one tender for both buses and supply.

Earlier this month, the local Catalan Court of Public Sector Contracts ruled in favour of the H₂ supplier, effectively ruling that the original tender is null and void.

Following this ruling, the new mayor — Rubén Viñuales of the Socialist Party of Catalonia, who took office in the city in June 2023 — decided that the plan to buy 35 new hydrogen buses would be shelved.

Instead, the €38.2m will now be spent on “various operations to renew and decarbonise a fleet [of 77 buses] that is too old”, according to local newspaper Diari de Tarragona.

“As many cities already do, we will bet on a hybrid mix of hydrogen, [battery-] electric and biogas buses,” said Viñuales, the newspaper reports.

The Catalan-speaking city actually introduced its first three hydrogen buses in November last year, which were supplied by Portuguese manufacturer Caetano.