The city’s hydrogen buses are not working

The city’s hydrogen buses are not working. | P. PELLICER

Andrew EdePalma18/08/2023 12:13
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When Palma’s new mobility councillor, Toni Deudero, said that hydrogen from the Lloseta plant for the city’s hydrogen buses wasn’t available, the obvious question was why not. Deudero, who was having a go at the previous administration about the expense of the buses and issues with supplies of hydrogen, didn’t say at the time.

Why didn’t he? Well, not long after he hadn’t explained this, the news emerged about the fault at the plant that had existed for more than a year. Deudero’s boss, Mayor Martínez, says that his administration hadn’t known anything about this. Yet Deudero’s predecessor, Francesc Dalmau, insists that they did know. “With the change of administration, I explained all the problems to the new councillor.”

If Deudero had been told, then it was more than the Balearic government had been. The now ex-director for energy, Pep Malagrava, says that he and the Armengol administration knew nothing about the fault. If not, this was truly staggering. The hydrogen plant was a really big deal in terms of energy transition, and yet the ministry for energy transition had no idea.

When the buses were presented in March, the ministry was told that they wouldn’t be using Lloseta hydrogen because “tests and adjustments” were being carried out. They were apparently not informed that the electrolyser hadn’t been working for months.

For a project as important as the hydrogen plant, the communications have been appalling, as also has been an apparent lack of supervision. Why wasn’t the ministry on top of what was going on?