Iberdrola and Spanish train producer CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles) declared a collaboration to augment the utilisation of green hydrogen in rail transport. Iosu Ibarbia, Director of Technology at CAF, and Millán García-Tola, Director of Green Hydrogen at the power firm, authenticated the declaration. It strives to deliver complete sustainable mobility solutions, which vary from the supply of railway vehicles and re-fuelling infrastructure to green hydrogen production plants and renewable energy infrastructures.
The Iberdrola and CAF collaboration
Electrification has a dominant hand over hydrogen solutions in the automobile sector. The involvement of the new-fangled energy solution is estimated to be foundational in the decarbonisation of the railway industry. One of CAF’s principal competitors, Spanish Talgo, has joined hands with Repsol and recently calculated that approximately 40% of European train lines do not possess electrified cables. Diesel locomotives presently operate the European train lines. As a result, hydrogen can change the scenario.
CAF’s earliest hydrogen train is closer than it may seem at the initial glance. The model’s testing, developed at its Zaragoza plant within the skeleton of the FCH2RAIL project, is estimated to begin in April 2022. Green hydrogen procured by Iberdrola from its Barcelona plant will power the hydrogen train.
The FCH2RAIL project, led by the Spanish producer, is already in the finishing stage of the design and manufacture of a hydrogen train archetype that will integrate an electricity generation based on a Renfe Civia series commuter unit system. The electricity generation system will hybridise energy from hydrogen cells and batteries, incorporating in turn with the current traction system of the vehicle. As a result, it will encompass one of the original hydrogen cell railway archetypes.
Iberdrola’s new-fangled hydrogen plant, which will supply fuel to the CAF archetype, is situated in the Barcelona Free Trade Zone and has already provided green hydrogen to modern buses in the Catalan capital. The plant is a faction of Iberdrola’s green hydrogen blueprint, incorporating the collaboration with Fertiberia in Puertollano or the Puerta de Europa cluster in Huelva.