Sep 16 2022
How can railways phase out diesel from their operations
HVO fuel and a future hydrogen combustion engine will play a role in reducing rail emissions. “We can replace old vehicles with new sustainable trains; however, we also need to do something to reduce the carbon footprint of existing vehicles running on diesel”, said Sittipan Reinold, Program Lead Diesel Exit Rail at Deutsche Bahn, during a webinar of sister publication RailTech.com.
Reducing current emissions for existing diesel trains is at the core of DB’s Diesel Exit programme, which was launched this year. “As DB forwarded its climate neutrality goal from 2050 to 2040, this means it’s only 18 years left, which in terms of railway innovation cycles is a very short time”, said Sittipan Reinold.
One of the ways DB wants to reduce the emissions of operations is by switching to HVO fuel, which stands for Hydro-treated Vegetable Oil. “HVO is a biofuel made out of waste and residual and components raw materials. Because it does not have a fossil origin, and green electricity is used for production, the CO2 emissions of the HVO fuel we buy are 90 per cent lower than diesel. Additionally, it has certificates to guarantee it is the greenest HVO and is palm oil-free.”
The main advantage of HVO as a biofuel is that it is a ‘drop-in fuel’. “You can take diesel from the vehicle and put in HVO, and the train is running. There is no need to adopt anything on the train.” DB tested it first in its Advanced TrainLab and started in January with the implementation of the fuel in its operations.
Freight subsidiary DB Cargo took a big step in approving all their diesel engines in Germany for the use of HVO. “Every DB Cargo vehicle is ready to use HVO, and the question is only: how fast can we convert refilling stations?” There are currently just three refilling stations for HVO in Germany, but more are coming.
However, is there enough HVO available to fuel all operations of DB? “In Germany, DB is consuming about 250 million litres of diesel”, says Reinold. The overall HVO production capacity in 2021 reached around 4 billion litres. DB estimates there will be enough green HVO for at least all their operations and other market participants. According to the German company, the amount of HVO with the greenest label is not yet at the level needed for all DB operations, but this will go up with the growing demand and should be sufficient with the gradual conversion of refuelling stations.
The role of hydrogen
While HVO fuel can significantly reduce emissions in the shorter term, the eyes are often on hydrogen to realise fully net-zero emissions in the future, as well as for rail. The current hydrogen drive available for trains – the hydrogen fuel cells – might not be the answer to everything. “For retrofitting a train with a diesel mechanic engine, you would have to electrify the whole powertrain of the car, so we were looking into other possibilities and other technologies for retrofitting our existing trains. We see hydrogen fuel cells mainly as a solution for new trains”, says Reinold. Read more
Source: RAILFREIGHT.COM