(Warsaw, Poland) – The publicly listed Polish petroleum refining company and service station operator Orlen Spółka Akcyjna will receive nine million euros in EU funding for the production and testing of hydrogen-powered vehicles at Chopin Airport and for the public transport system in Warsaw. Orlen is leading the "HySpark" consortium. According to reports, this is the first project in Poland to receive funding from the EU's "Clean Hydrogen Partnership" program.
Consortium supplies equipment
The vehicles manufactured as part of HySpark will be fueled with hydrogen by Orlen from Włocławek, northwest of Warsaw. The opening of a filling station at the airport itself is planned for 2026. Hydrogen-powered buses will be supplied by Arthur Bus GmbH from southern Germany, trucks will come from Quantron AG in Augsburg and ground handling equipment from the Italian company Atena.
The vehicles will be used by the municipal bus company Miejskie Zakłady Autobusowe of Warsaw, Orlen and LS Airport Services. Several local authorities in Poland have already started using hydrogen buses, and in Poznań “we have set up our first publicly accessible filling station for passenger cars,” says Grzegorz Jóźwiak, head of the Hydrogen Technology and Synthetic Fuels Office.
17 partners from five countries
HySpark (Hydrogen Solutions for European Airports & Regional Kinetics) involves 17 companies from Poland, Germany, Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The research and development activities are led by the Warsaw Institute of Power Engineering - National Research Institute (IEN-PIB), with support from the Warsaw University of Technology, RINA and Bureau Veritas Polska, among others, as well as Toyota Central Europe, the Polish Aviation Group, the Orlen subsidiary Anwil SA, the Technical Inspectorate for Transport, Gdańsk Airport and the Polish Association for New Mobility. In the "coming years" hydrogen distribution will be set up in central Poland. There are already plans for a hydrogen hub in the vicinity of other European airports, says Jakub Kupecki, director of the IEN-PIB.
HySpark is part of the Mazovian Hydrogen Valley Cluster, which brings together 48 research institutes, universities, and public and private companies. The aim is to create a regional hub connecting producers with technology providers and users of hydrogen in various sectors, such as transport as aviation fuel and the fertilizer industry.
100 hydrogen filling stations planned
Orlen says it plans to build a network of over 100 hydrogen filling stations in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which will serve private and public transport as well as freight, road and rail transport by 2030. The energy carrier will be supplied via a European chain of hydrogen hubs. The Orlen Group's electrolyzer capacities are expected to reach a cumulative total of around one gigawatt by 2030, enabling an annual production of more than 130.000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen.
Photos
The HySpark consortium of industry and science is receiving funding from the EU to develop a hydrogen economy and filling stations in Poland. © Orlen
