World’s First Hydrogen Tram with Green Energy Starts in China

Last Updated on December 8, 2017 by Bharat Saini

Marking a big step in the application of green energy in public transport, World’s first Hybrid Electric Tram powered by Hydrogen fuel cells has started running in China and has been put into commercial operation for the first time in Tangshan, north Chinas Hebei Province from Friday 27 October, 2017. According to China Railway Rolling Corporation (CRRC) Tangshan Co, the maker of the tram, world’s first of its kind ecologically-friendly hydrogen fuel cell-powered Tramcar, researched and manufactured by Chinese, had been demonstrated at an assembly facility in Qingdao in March 2015 and reduction in its running costs was being studied.

• It is the world’s first hybrid electric tram, with hydrogen being the main power source.
• Hydrogen Tram emits no pollutants as Water is its only emission.
• No nitrogen oxides are produced as the temperature of the reaction inside hydrogen fuel cells is controlled at less than 100 degrees Celsius.
• It has latest low-floor technology which has kept the distance between carriage floor of tram and rail line only 35 cm and removed need for station platforms, making boarding easy for passengers.
• Tram has three carriages with 66 seats.
• It can run for 40 km at a maximum speed of 70 km per hour after being refilled with 12 kilograms of hydrogen.
• Tram operates on a 136-year-old railway line in Tangshan City, one of Chinas earliest industrial cities, and links several of its industrial heritage sites of Tangshan, one of China’s oldest industrial cities not far from the capital Beijing.

Hydrogen Vehicles use hydrogen as on board fuel for motive power. Hydrogen vehicles include hydrogen-fuelled space rockets, as well as automobiles and other transportation vehicles. The power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy either by burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, or by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run electric motors. Widespread use of hydrogen for fuelling transportation is a key element of a proposed hydrogen economy.

Hydrogen fuel cells are being looked into as a way to provide power and research is being conducted on hydrogen as a possible major future fuel. For instance it can be converted to and from electricity from bio-fuels, from and into natural gas and diesel fuel, theoretically with no emissions of either CO2 or toxic chemicals.