Hydrogen energy, a clean, zero-carbon, pollution-free renewable energy, it has the characteristics of high energy density, diverse methods of extraction, and a clean process of production and usage. In the future, hydrogen energy has broad prospects for development and huge application potential.

In recently years, the hydrogen energy industry has grown rapidly around world, and the low-carbon clean energy represented by hydrogen energy has become a development trend for electricity and power supply. At present, there are still 40,000 kilometers of non-electrified railway in China, and promoting the development of hydrogen rail transit equipment with green and zero-carbon characteristics is one of the important directions to achieve the goal of double carbon.

At the beginning of 2022, under the wave of green and low-carbon transformation of the rail transit industry, CRRC Changchun initiated the project and research for the world’s first hydrogen-powered regional train, mobilizing various research and development talents in the rail transit field and forming a large-scale R&D design team.

“ At the beginning of the train project design, there was no prototype car to refer to China and abroad, and the research and development work was difficult.” CRRC Changke New technology research Department of new energy research director Shi Lei said.

In order to achieve research and development breakthrough as soon as possible, Shi Lei led the team and was divided into three key groups, through 1 month of technical exploration and product research on a global scale, and gradually formed the vehicle architecture of 3 types of hydrogen energy municipal trains, hydrogen energy equipment selection and layout.

Which of the three schemes is better? How to finalize the first construction blueprint for the world’s first hydrogen-powered city train? The research and development team immediately began to analyze the key characteristics of each scheme, such as vehicle weight distribution, axle load, dynamic performance, mode, and aerodynamic resistance. Finally, after a week of day and night demonstration, a set of distributed cluster hybrid vehicle overall technical architecture scheme was finally released.

“By hybrid, the vehicle can be powered by hydrogen, and it can be powered by electricity as well as it can be powered by hydrogen and electricity at the same time.” Shi Lei said that in order to meet vehicle power needs and reduce hybrid energy consumption, the research and development team based on an artificial intelligence-based real-time grid scheduling optimization strategy, combined with vehicle power source and load characteristics to adjust, and finally formed a self-developed online energy management control strategy, at least 10% of the vehicle energy consumption can be reduced.

Through nearly 1 year of research and development and technical breakthroughs, on December 28, 2022, the world’s first hydrogen energy city train independently developed by CRRC Changke was declared successful. "Over the past two years, CRRC Changke has completed the durability and testing validation of the hydrogen power system and its key components for the world's first hydrogen-powered regional train, addressing factors such as high and low temperatures, vibration, electromagnetic compatibility, and fire safety. Furthermore, it has conducted tests on the entire vehicle under different speed levels, assessing energy consumption, range, reliability, traction, braking, and dynamics. The test results indicate that all parameters meet the vehicle design requirements, and the vehicle's performance indicators have reached an internationally advanced level."

"On March 21 of this year, the world's first hydrogen-powered regional train completed a fully loaded operation test at a speed of 160 kilometers per hour on the rail test line of CRRC Changke in Changchun. Data shows that the actual average energy consumption of the train is only 5 kilowatt-hours per kilometer, with a maximum range of over 1000 kilometers. This test marks the first comprehensive, all-scenario, and multi-level performance validation of a hydrogen train at a speed of 160 kilometers per hour globally, signifying a breakthrough in the application of hydrogen energy in the rail transit field.

The birth of the world's first hydrogen-powered regional train in Jilin is an important milestone in the high-quality development of our province's high-end equipment manufacturing and rail transit industry, as well as the latest practice of Jilin's revitalization fully embracing the 'new' and accelerating the formation of new productive forces."

Source: Changchun release   Editor: QI Ji