Arcola Energy is to lead a consortium tasked with delivering Scotland’s first hydrogen powered train, which will be demonstrated during COP26, held in Glasgow, in November.
On 29 December, it was announced that Scottish Enterprise, Transport Scotland, and the Hydrogen Accelerator, based at the University of St Andrews, had appointed Arcola to lead a group of industry leaders in hydrogen fuel cell integration, rail engineering and functional safety in developing the train. As well as the eventual demonstration at COP26, a key objective of the project is to create opportunities for the Scottish rail supply chain through skills development and industrialisation of the technology.
Arcola will develop the technology platform for the train’s new powertrain, with its existing A-Drive platform extended to meet rail safety and compliance requirements. This will allow the consortium to substantially cut development time and cost, leading to the delivery of a complete hydrogen powered solution in 10 months. Arup is among the project partners and will use learnings from the project to develop a roadmap to roll out hydrogen trains and support the decarbonisation of Scotland’s rail network.
