Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) awarded Canadian Pacific (CP) a CAD 15 million (USD 12 million) grant for its Hydrogen Locomotive Programme. The grant enables CP to increase the number of hydrogen locomotive conversions in the project from one to three and add hydrogen production and fueling facilities. The programme will create a global centre of excellence in hydrogen and freight rail systems in Alberta.
“In expanding this groundbreaking project, CP is demonstrating its commitment to combatting climate change through transformative technology. I am very pleased that ERA selected this programme for a grant and I eagerly anticipate seeing a hydrogen-powered locomotive move CP customer freight in the near future,” Keith Creel, the Chief Executive Officer of CP said.
The Canadian rail company is receiving the 50/50 matching grant from ERA’s Shovel Ready Challenge programme. CP has already planned a CAD 15 million investment for the development of the project in 2021.
“The project will help scale up technology and bring down the costs of deploying hydrogen to address the critical challenge of decarbonizing the long haul, heavy-freight sector,” Steve MacDonald, CEO of Emissions Reduction Alberta said.
Canadian Pacific announced it would design and build North America’s first line-haul hydrogen locomotive using fuel cells and batteries to power the locomotive’s electric traction motors.
With the grant CP will build upon its early programme research to convert an additional line-haul locomotive and a yard switcher locomotive. This work will refine the process of converting diesel-electric power trains to hydrogen-electric power trains over a series of three categories of locomotive, which collectively represent most locomotives in use throughout North America.
To support hydrogen locomotive operations, the project will include the installation of hydrogen production and fuelling facilities at CP railyards in Calgary and Edmonton. The Calgary fuelling facility will include an electrolysis plant to produce hydrogen from water. This facility will operate on renewable power from solar panels at CP’s headquarters campus and produce zero greenhouse gas emissions. The Edmonton facility includes a small-scale steam methane reformation system that will generate hydrogen from Alberta’s natural gas resources. The system will be constructed to accommodate the possible future addition of greenhouse gas capture equipment.
The Hydrogen Locomotive Programme will demonstrate and evaluate the technical performance of hydrogen-powered locomotives and supporting fuelling infrastructure in real-world operations.
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