Hydrogen
Siemens hails hydrogen’s “huge potential” to decarbonise UK railways and meet net zero targets.
SIEMENS has hailed hydrogen power as having “huge potential” to help decarbonise UK railways and meet the country’s net zero deadline.
Speaking to RAIL after demonstrating the company’s Mireo Plus H hydrogen train at Wildenrath in Germany on September 9, Siemens Mobility UK and Ireland’s Managing Director Rolling Stock & Customer Services Sambit Banerjee warned that current electrification proposals “could take until 2060 and beyond to complete”.
“This means leaving polluting diesel trains on the network for more than ten years after the UK’s legislative net zero date,” he said.
Short of electrifying a minimum of 300 miles “every year until 2050”, Banerjee declared: “Self-powered trains utilising alternative power sources, such as hydrogen or battery, must be introduced by 2030 to help meet decarbonisation targets.”
He said there was a “clear case” for hydrogen or hydrogen bi-mode trains on routes including Aberdeen-Penzance, the Chiltern Main Line, Norwich-Liverpool, and Waterloo-Exeter.
“I must mention Scotland are leading the way on rail decarbonisation, with targets for 2035, a well-defined strategy, and already approved procurement for electrification and new, clean rolling stock,” Banerjee told RAIL.
His comments echo those of the Scottish Government’s Hydrogen Policy Statement issued in 2020, which suggests that hydrogen trains “are seen as a realistic and affordable option for Scotland in the second half of this decade”.
That policy perceives hydrogen fleets as a potential transitional step before electrification, “as well as providing a permanent solution on more remote, less intensively used sections of the network where full-scale electrification is either not economic or desirable for environmental reasons”.
Banerjee’s comments come after September 9’s formal launch of Germany’s ‘H2 goes Rail’ - a collaboration between Siemens and state-owned railway Deutsche Bahn (DB) to roll out hydrogenpowered trains using ‘green’ hydrogen produced from renewable sources.
Core to that is the Mireo Plus H, which in two-car form has a range of up to 800km (500 miles) and a top speed of 160kph (100mph). Siemens says the three-car version has a range of 1,000km.
Showing the significance being placed on ‘H2 goes Rail’, DB CEO Richard Lutz, State Secretary
Hartmut Höppner and Siemens CEO Roland Busch were all present for a demonstration of the Mireo Plus H, as well as being shown a lorry-based mobile refuelling point for the trains.
Hydrogen fuel cells work by combining stored hydrogen with
atmospheric oxygen to produce electricity. Only water/water vapour is emitted at the point of use, although the extent to which using hydrogen is climate-friendly depends on whether it is produced using ‘grey’ (fossil fuel) or ‘green’ (renewable) means.
Siemens is already building seven two-car units that are expected to enter passenger service in 2024 in Berlin and Brandenburg. Intended as the successor to the Desiro, the Mireo was first unveiled as a conventional electric multiple unit (EMU) in 2016. A batterypowered variant is also offered.
Germany has become a leader in hydrogen power for rail, with Siemens’ entry into the market following Alstom’s introduction of its Coradia iLint in the state of Lower Saxony.
After trials from 2018, those trains went into regular service on the world’s first 100% hydrogen-powered route (which includes Bremerhaven) this August. The company was also set to undertake a hydrogen train distance record with an iLint on September 15 (after this issue of RAIL went to press), ahead of the following week’s major InnoTrans rail trade show in Berlin.
Progress on hydrogen power in the UK has so far been limited to demonstrators, with Porterbrook’s HydroFLEX (a conversion in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and
others of a former Class 319) launched at Rail Live in 2019.
That was followed by the Scottish Hydrogen Train collaboration that included Arcola Energy and Arup, which used a former Class 314 EMU as a demonstrator for Glasgow’s COP26 climate change conference in 2020.
However, Banerjee said: “I have been very encouraged by the Government’s commitment to starting a hydrogen infrastructure in the UK - for example, channelling funding for the various hydrogen hubs in Teesside and Glasgow.
“But this is only the first step, and we need the next steps in the strategy to get this to work. The UK could indeed be a world leader in hydrogen production.”
Siemens’ Mireo Plus H is to be displayed at InnoTrans, while Alstom’s Coradia iLint is expected to run shuttles as part of the event. Full report - see RAIL 968.