Fuel Cells For Supplementary Power

There are many industries where directly replacing existing fossil fuel technologies such as diesel and petrol engines is far from simple. However, this does not necessarily mean that those industries cannot benefit from greener technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells and electrolysers, or greener fuel types such as hydrogen and biofuels.

An example of this was recently demonstrated by Colas Rail UK within their Freight Business. Colas Rail collaborated with G-Volution Ltd, plus various other companies (see the article below for a longer list), to utilise a 35kW solid oxide fuel cell system, along with a biofuel - in this case Bio Liquefied Petroleum Gas, or Bio-LPG, to generate electrical power for powering the exterior and interior lighting on their 37254 locomotive. Even though the train's main driving fuel remained diesel, the supply of green power for auxiliary loading such as lighting, all helped to partially decarbonise their locomotive