(by Marco Assab) (ANSA) – ROME, AUGUST 24 – In the railway mobility of the future, the hydrogen train could become the norm. And to get a preview of what will be, you can go to Lower Saxony, Germany, where the first 100% hydrogen route is taking shape. The protagonists of this revolution are 14 Coradia iLint trains built by Alstom which, by the end of the year, will replace 15 diesel trains on the route between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude.
In the immediate future, according to local media reports, five zero-emission trains will circulate on the 126 kilometers of the regional section, which will be refueled daily and 24 hours a day from Linde’s Bremervörde hydrogen refueling station. The plant contains 64 500 bar high pressure tanks, for a total capacity of 1,800 kg, six hydrogen compressors and two fuel pumps. Trains that, explains Alstom, emit only water vapor and condensate with a range of 1,000 kilometers, being able to operate all day with a single hydrogen tank. On the German network this train travels at speeds between 80 and 120 km / h, being able to reach a maximum speed of 140.
Despite numerous electrification projects in several countries, a significant part of the European rail network is not electrified, with a large number of diesel trains in operation. And it is here, also with a view to energy diversification, that the EU is focusing on hydrogen in its Green Deal. In Italy the PNRR allocates 300 million euros to the experimentation of hydrogen on rail transport and in the future of Alstom there is also our country, with which the French group has signed a contract for the manufacture of six hydrogen trains to be used in Lombardy, with the option of an additional eight vehicles.
The project for the first Italian hydrogen railway concerns the 100 kilometers of non-electrified Brescia-Iseo-Edolo line, with the delivery of the first cars expected by 2023. But in recent months there have also been contrary voices and doubts about actual environmental benefits and cost advantages between electrification and hydrogen. In its Pendolaria 2022 report, Legambiente noted that there is “no guarantee that hydrogen produced from renewable sources will be used and the risk of representing a waste of public resources is very high”.
But in Germany there seem to be fewer doubts and the contract signed by Alstom for 14 trains in Lower Saxony was followed by another for 27 Coradia iLint trains destined for the Frankfurt metropolitan area. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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