Towards a new mobility concept for regional trains and hydrogen infrastructure

In this paper, an integrated system, refueling infrastructure-hydrogen hybrid fuel cell train, is deeply investigated as an advanced mobility application. The proposed system is analyzed in terms of energy performance and economic aspects. Detailed numerical modeling is performed, to size and simulate the main components of the hydrogen facility and fuel cell hybrid train, on a 140-km regional line located in Southern Italy. For the hybrid railways, two 180-kW fuel cells, in parallel, are used both for passenger and freight locomotives. To size the hydrogen fueling station, 1-day operations are considered, with a hydrogen consumption of approximately 250 kg. The station resulted to be mainly composed of a 670 kW-PEM electrolyzer, producing 260 kg of daily hydrogen, stored at 350 bar. A sensitive analysis is proposed, focusing on the main system parameters, varying the passenger number and freight weight of ± 20%. Promising results are reached, demonstrating the feasibility and benefits of the system, in terms of energy performance, with a fuel cell efficiency higher than 47% and a facility efficiency over 50%, maintaining high values even in the most demanding scenarios. Via the financial analysis, attractive financial indicators have been reached, e.g. levelized cost of hydrogen and total cost of ownership respectively of about 8 €/kg and 12 €/km, and return on the investment of almost 19%, confirming the huge potentiality of hydrogen technology applied to heavy-duty transport.