On January 27th, China's first hydrogen fuel cell hybrid locomotive, jointly developed by Southwest Jiaotong University and CRRC Datong Co., Ltd, was successfully put off the production line in CRRC Datong Co., Ltd., marking a key breakthrough in China's hydrogen energy rail transit technology.
The locomotive adopts the rail transit high-power fuel cell power generation system developed by the team of Professor Chen Weirong in our university, breaking through the core technologies of fuel cell hybrid power system integration, system optimization control, and energy management. Meanwhile, the stack adopts the internationally leading metal stack of Toyota Motor Corporation (Japan) and can be started at low temperature, which is also the first application of fuel cell metal stack in the field of rail transit.
The locomotive design speed of 80 km per hour, and can run continuously for 24.5 hours with a full load of hydrogen, and the maximum traction load of the flat straight is more than 5000 tons. Therefore, without changing any of the basic railway lines, it can perform multi-purpose tasks such as operation, shunting and rescue in various locomotive depots, rolling stock depots, marshaling stations, or large factories, mines, ports and other places.
Hydrogen energy is regarded as the most potential clean energy in the 21st century Due to the advantages of clean, environmentally friendly, efficient and sustainable. The fuel cell is the best form of hydrogen energy utilization. It generates electricity through the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, and the product is only water, no pollutant emissions. Moreover, it has the advantages of high power generation efficiency, short refueling time, and renewable, which has been successfully applied in transportation, communications, aerospace and other fields. At present, hydrogen energy rail transit has become the development direction and research focus of green, energy-saving, and low-carbon technologies, especially suitable for urban rail transit, railway engineering maintenance operation vehicles, shunting locomotives, and large railway maintenance machinery, etc.
Since 2008, Professor Chen Weirong's team has taken the lead in the application research of hydrogen fuel cells in rail transit in China, opening up the research direction of hydrogen energy rail transit. After more than ten years of technical research, the team has broken through key technologies such as high-power fuel cell optimal control, energy management of hybrid system, fault diagnosis and life prediction. The team successfully developed China's first fuel cell electric locomotive in 2013, and jointly developed the world's first fuel cell hybrid tramway with CRRC Tangshan Co., Ltd. in 2016, leading the development of hydrogen energy rail transit technology in China.
