By 2030, Incheon's internal combustion engine buses will have disappeared into history.

On the 30th, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy signed a business agreement with Incheon City, SK E&S, PlugPower, and others at Incheon City Hall to promote hydrogen public transportation.

Incheon City plans to replace 700 of its 2,000 city buses with hydrogen buses by 2024, convert all city buses to hydrogen buses by 2030, and build 13 liquid hydrogen charging stations exclusively for city buses by 2025.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that it will actively promote this plan by signing business agreements with Incheon City, the Ministry of Environment, SK E&S, PlugPower, and Hyundai Motor Company.

This business agreement will create a stable demand for liquefied hydrogen, which is expected to be produced at an annual rate of 30,000 tons at the Incheon-based hydrogen liquefaction plant starting in 2023, and contribute to the expansion of the domestic hydrogen mobility industry.

With this agreement as an opportunity, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plans to pursue policy support measures, such as expanding research and development and government support projects to promote hydrogen public transportation in the future, while the Ministry of Environment plans to actively pursue government-level support, such as providing administrative and financial support for replacing hydrogen buses and building hydrogen charging stations.

Vice Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Park Ki-young pointed out that Korea still faces many challenges in the areas of hydrogen vehicles and fuel cells, and emphasized that this is a key field that will grow into a new energy industry in the future, and therefore, it is one of the representative energy policy tasks that the next administration must continue to pursue.

He continued, “The government will also provide full support to foster the hydrogen industry, including creating a hydrogen ecosystem centered on clean hydrogen through revisions to the Hydrogen Act, leaping forward to become one of the world’s top three hydrogen technology powerhouses based on manufacturing technology in automobiles, ships, etc., and ‘building a business-friendly infrastructure’ through forward-looking regulatory reforms such as the regulatory sandbox.”