Neutral Techno-Economics Beats Hydrogen Narratives

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Bayreuth, a pleasant Bavarian city of about 75,000 people, has become an unlikely symbol of learning in the hydrogen story. Two years ago, its municipal utility, Stadtwerke Bayreuth, announced a plan to decarbonize its bus fleet with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It looked like the future. The proposal included a 5 MW electrolyzer, a 17 MW solar park, and an integrated hydrogen refueling station. It promised clean local production and energy sovereignty, and was supported by millions in federal and state funding. The first hydrogen bus was to be ordered in 2025, with twenty-five in service by 2030. It sounded like vision. In 2025, the same organization looked at the data again and quietly decided to buy battery-electric buses instead.

That reversal may sound minor, but it reveals a deep truth about fleet transitions. When an organization runs a neutral techno-economic assessment, hydrogen loses. Every time the full system costs are laid out—electricity inputs, conversion losses, compression, fueling, maintenance, capital, and operation—the spreadsheet points toward direct electrification. When politics, subsidies, or narratives lead the process, hydrogen still gets its moment on stage. When engineering and finance get to run the show, the curtain drops early.

Bayreuth’s story is a local reflection of this pattern. In 2023, the city was caught up in the optimism that swept Europe. Hydrogen was framed as the perfect solution for fleets that wanted to be green but feared the limits of early batteries. The promise of green hydrogen from local solar made it even more attractive. Like many municipalities, Bayreuth saw an opportunity to link jobs, infrastructure, and climate goals in one project. But behind the vision, the economic reality was waiting.

Hydrogen’s problem is simple physics wrapped in complex logistics. It takes about three units of renewable electricity to deliver one unit of motion at the wheels. Electrolysis, compression, storage, and reconversion all waste energy. The equipment is expensive and needs constant maintenance. The hydrogen itself is always priced higher than diesel once all costs are accounted for. Battery-electric buses, on the other hand, have kept improving year after year. Range and reliability have grown while costs have fallen. Charging infrastructure can be shared across depots and fleets. When a city puts both systems into a total cost of ownership model, the lines never cross in hydrogen’s favor.

Even if Bayreuth had managed to produce perfectly green hydrogen from solar power, the system wouldn’t have been zero-emission once the leaks started. Hydrogen isn’t a greenhouse gas on its own, but when it escapes, it changes atmospheric chemistry in ways that trap more heat. It lengthens methane’s lifetime and boosts ozone levels, both of which add warming. The best current science puts its indirect global warming potential somewhere between 11 and 33 times that of CO₂, depending on the timeframe of impacts chosen. That’s not trivial. Every valve, compressor, and connection in a hydrogen system leaks a little, and those small percentages add up fast across production, storage, and refueling. I’ve said before that once you factor in those leaks, the climate math for hydrogen transport stops working. Even the greenest hydrogen isn’t really green once it’s out in the air.

We have seen this pattern in other parts of Germany. Baden-Württemberg commissioned a detailed comparison of hydrogen, battery, and overhead-wire trains in 2022. It found hydrogen operations roughly three times as expensive as battery or wired systems. A few hundred kilometers north, Lower Saxony discovered the same lesson by experience. It deployed fourteen Alstom hydrogen trains with €93 million in funding. Within a year, officials admitted that ongoing costs were too high and future orders would be electric only. Once again, the spreadsheet won. Now, only four of the hydrogen trains are working, with diesel models filling in, another familiar pattern given the fragility of fuel cells.

Bayreuth’s reversal followed a second, neutral techno-economic assessment that cut through earlier assumptions. The new analysis showed that battery-electric buses already met the city’s range and performance needs, and that hydrogen added cost and complexity without advantage. If the same objective assessment had been done in 2022 or 2023, it would likely have reached the same conclusions. The data had always favored batteries; only perception and timing had not caught up.

What makes Bayreuth stand out is that it paused before buying anything. Many cities proceed through the first acts of what I have called the Odyssey of the Hydrogen Fleet. They start with lobbying and grants, buy a few expensive buses, struggle to maintain them, and eventually abandon the project. Bayreuth nearly followed that script. It had the funding, the electrolyzer plan, and the early enthusiasm. But before reaching the point of no return, the governmental funding was delayed, the utility’s engineers and accountants looked at the data again and saw the mismatch between promise and practicality. They stopped before Act 3.

That restraint matters. Once hydrogen hardware is installed, sunk costs take over. Agencies keep spending to justify earlier spending. They rebrand pilots as learning exercises and wait for the economics to improve. In reality, the economics never do. Hydrogen remains a core element for ammonia-based fertilizers and explosives, for hydrotreating biofuels, for the declining refining of crude oil and a few other industrial feedstock use cases, and they must be decarbonized. For local transport, electrons win every time. Bayreuth avoided joining the long list of cities that burned through public money to rediscover that fact.

There is still some risk that the story will resume. The city’s electrolyzer may go forward for other municipal uses, which could tempt decision-makers to revisit hydrogen vehicles later. Subsidy programs come in cycles, and each new wave can bring renewed political pressure to participate. Bayreuth will need to stay grounded in the same techno-economic discipline that saved it from deeper losses. The key is to keep asking the same question: when all the costs are counted, what delivers the most service per unit of clean electricity?

Across Europe, the pattern is repeating. Pau in France abandoned its hydrogen buses for battery ones. Baden-Württemberg walked away from hydrogen trains. Lower Saxony learned the same lesson. In California, hydrogen bus programs keep facing high fuel costs and station failures while battery fleets expand. In every case, the turning point comes when neutral analysis replaces narrative optimism. Once the spreadsheet is allowed to speak, the answer is the same.

Bayreuth’s reversal is not just a local policy story. It is an example of how institutions learn. Clean transport decisions are not about ideology or hype, but about physics and economics. The right solution emerges when those two are given equal weight. Hydrogen has a place in a few industrial systems, but for road and rail fleets, direct electrification is simpler, cheaper, and already proven at scale. Bayreuth’s choice to stop, recalculate, and pivot reflects maturity, not failure.

If the city continues down its new path, it will build a reliable, low-cost, battery-electric, actually zero-emission fleet that works. If it succumbs to the next round of hydrogen enthusiasm, it risks becoming another case study in the Odyssey. The lesson for other cities is clear. Run the numbers honestly. Update the models as technology changes. Follow the evidence, not the narrative. Bayreuth did, and in doing so, stepped off the stage before the tragedy began.