India: Cochin Airport to deploy three hydrogen buses
Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), the company that owns and operates Kochi Airport, has signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with Kerala’s Hydrogen Valley Innovation Cluster (HVIC) for this initiative. The latter is funding the project, which is valued at 87 million rupees (approximately 813,450 euros), and will disburse the funds in stages.
Under the agreement, CIAL will procure hydrogen buses at a price cap of 29 million rupees (around 271,150 euros) per unit, using funding from Kerala HVIC. The airport operator expects to induct all three vehicles by February 2027.
CIAL will decide the routes and operating model and will manage all operational and statutory costs. It has partnered with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) to develop a green hydrogen plant to refuel the new zero-emission buses, with the facility expected to become operational soon.
Neither party involved in the project has disclosed details about the hydrogen buses planned for use.
In March 2025, EKA Mobility, together with KPIT Technologies and BPCL, announced plans to deploy a nine-metre hydrogen fuel cell bus with a seating capacity of over 30 passengers under a three-year proof-of-concept (PoC) project at Kochi Airport. It is currently unclear whether the three new units planned for regular operations will be of the same model.
Kerala HVIC is one of four such clusters sanctioned by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) under the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM). The other clusters are located in Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Pune (Maharashtra) and Bhubaneshwar (Odisha).
The HVICs serve as test beds for green hydrogen technologies and form part of several other initiatives undertaken by MNRE under NGHM, which was launched in January 2023 with an outlay of 197.44 billion rupees (approximately 1.85 billion euros).
0 Comments