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City of Leuven buys hydrogen-powered garbage truck

1 September 2021

The city of Leuven will purchase a garbage truck running on hydrogen in 2022. Leuven has been looking for an alternative to diesel garbage trucks for years.

Stad Leuven
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The many stops and maneuvers ensure that these trucks have a high fuel consumption. The city has listed the alternatives and has now decided to purchase a hydrogen-powered vehicle.

"Purely electric-powered trucks are currently not yet suitable for this task," says the competent alderman for city cleaning Thomas Van Oppens (Green). "Their range is limited and because of the weight of their batteries they lose a lot of payload." CNG also fell out of favor as an alternative fuel after a comparison.

"Electric vehicles, which increase their range with hydrogen fuel cells that constantly recharge the batteries, are in our opinion the most suitable for collection vehicles at the moment," Van Oppens states. Brussels and Antwerp have such collection trucks on order, and several are already on the road in Germany.

The price tag for such a garbage truck is not insignificant: Leuven has made available a budget of 600,000 euros. By way of comparison: a garbage truck with a Euro 6 diesel engine costs an average of 230,000 euros. But Leuven can count on a subsidy from FostPlus.


Source: VRT
Translated by Leuven MindGate

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