Several railway-based trials have been undertaken and are underway/planned to test the feasibility of hydrogen across Europe. Due to a variety of reasons, including cost and reliability, none have led to a commercially viable hydrogen-powered rail freight operation. RailFreight.com spoke with leading energy decarbonisation expert Michael Barnard, based in Vancouver, Canada, to try to understand why.
Approximately 42.4% of Europe’s railway network remains non-electrified. As such, there is a use case for a fuel system that allows trains to travel on just under half of the network. Much of this is handled by diesel trains at present.
Barnard says outright, “At present, I can’t identify a European freight application where I would recommend hydrogen over the alternatives. “Non-electrified” does not mean “needs a fuel.” It means deciding how much of the route should be wired and how much onboard storage is needed for the rest. Partial electrification plus batteries means you don’t need wires over every siding, terminal, bridge or lightly used kilometre.”
Too expensive
Currently, the cost per kilometre of transport using hydrogen fuel is much higher than that of diesel or even battery-electric. Many pro-hydrogen organisations say that there is potential for this to fall. Currently, while Europe has the industrial capacity to produce low-emissions hydrogen (electrolysed from water using renewable or nuclear energy), many electrolysers are running below capacity. Could a growth in demand – potentially from mass adoption by rail freight companies – help improve capacity and reduce the cost?
Barnard is again sceptical. “Rail freight might improve the utilisation of a stranded electrolyser. It does not make its hydrogen cheap. Higher utilisation spreads electrolyser capital over more kilograms, but it also means operating during more hours when electricity is not exceptionally cheap. Then come balance-of-plant costs, compression, storage, transport and dispensing.”
The high cost of the fuel at the tank stems from the high costs of production, storage and transport. He continues, “This is where cheap-hydrogen projections often fail: they turn a production cost into a delivered fuel cost. I’ve reviewed European studies where apparent €2–3/kg hydrogen becomes closer to €8/kg delivered industrially and roughly €14/kg for transportation once omitted system costs are restored.”
Technological barriers
Even with many rail freight operators in Europe being heavily state-backed, ultimately cost-per-km is going to dictate the wider use of hydrogen. Barnard says that currently, “I see no evidence they are approaching commercial competitiveness.”
In this application, hydrogen is essentially an indirect means of storing electricity. Barnard continues, “Freight locomotives are already electric at the traction motors, including diesel-electrics. Hydrogen adds an indirect energy pathway: make hydrogen with electricity, compress, store, move and dispense it, then convert it back to electricity in a fuel cell, normally through a battery buffer.” Why not just use a standard battery?
Battery-electric technology has been used to enable fuel-cell electric systems in locomotives – and electric systems are advancing independently as well. Barnard explains, “European manufacturers now offer powerful electric freight locomotives with batteries for terminals, sidings and gaps in electrification. That directly removes one of hydrogen’s historic arguments.”
Essentially, hydrogen fuel technology has to ride on the back of battery-electric systems that are advancing to the point that hydrogen is becoming irrelevant. Barnard points to Lower Saxony as an example, arguing that Deutsche Bahn “bought a hydrogen fleet and dedicated infrastructure, encountered operating and cost problems, and selected batteries for its next major diesel-replacement phase.”
Competing with better options
Could there ever be a time in which Barnard would change his mind? “What would change my mind is evidence: a sizeable commercial freight fleet running for several years on genuinely low-carbon hydrogen, without exceptional operating subsidies, with high availability and audited whole-system costs below battery-plus-electrification — followed by the operator spending its own money on a substantially larger second fleet.”
He concludes, “Hydrogen rail freight is not competing with a theoretical future battery. It is competing with mature overhead electrification and rapidly improving batteries, using an electricity system that railways already have. Falling electrolyser prices do not change that.”