Sep 18, 2024

Share Credit: Hitachi Rail Developer teams up with coalition of partners including Turntide Technologies, DB ESG, and BCRRE in bid to develop smaller and lighter battery packs for trains Hitachi Rail has teamed up with a group of clean technology specialists on a £1.4m mission to develop "next generation" battery train technologies that are smaller and lighter - and therefore more widely adoptable - than its current crop of battery packs. The new batteries currently being developed by the partners use lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which the Japanese-owned rolling stock manufacturer said should enable batteries to deliver impressive levels of power from a smaller battery pack. The resulting smaller battery packs are expected to be more suitable for retrofitting a greater number of Britain's fleet of diesel rolling stock, which typically have lower floors that provide less space for batteries, Hitachi Rail explained. The company believes replacing diesel engines with a powerful battery can unlock wider electrification of the rail network at lower cost than upgrade projects involving the installation of overhead lines, potentially providing a lower-cost pathway to decarbonising railways around the world. The project is aimed at building upon and complementing the intercity battery technology currently already being trialled by Hitachi Rail on a Transpennine train, which began operating along two regional routes around North East and North West England last month. The trial is the first in the UK where a diesel engine has been replaced with a battery on an intercity train, and is expected to cut costs and emissions by as much as 30 per cent by eradicating the need for polluting diesel fuel. However, Hitachi Rail said the latest generation of battery packs announced today were designed to be 40 per cent smaller in size while delivering a 22 per cent improvements in energy density compared to those being tested on the Transpennine route. Unveiling plans for the new battery R&D project, Koji Agatsuma, Hitachi Rail's chief technology officer, hailed the rate of battery innovation as "incredible". "This continuous improvement means we are always working on the next generation of smaller and more powerful batteries to reduce cost on railways by negating electrification infrastructure spend or removing diesel engines entirely," he said. The UK trials build on the launch of Hitachi's Masaccio battery hybrid train in Italy in 2022, which has cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent compared to the diesel trains it has replaced. Today's £1.4m research and development project is being match funded from both the private and public sector, with government-backed agency Innovate UK co-funding the initiative in a bid to help encourage new UK battery innovation, it said. Hitachi Rail has also teamed up with Sunderland-based automotive battery supplier Turntide Technologies on the project, as well as rail consultancy DB ESG, which has been appointed to lead the design of the enclosure to house the new battery, including the provision of fire protection and cooling capabilities. The University of Birmingham's Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE), meanwhile, has been tapped to optimise the design and usage of the battery as part of the project. Professor Pietro Tricoli, lead in power electronics at the BCRRE, said the proposed project includes "a comprehensive research programme aimed at optimising the design and the usage of the battery when the train travels in the non-electrified parts of the network". "We will provide our expertise with railway simulations to investigate the routes for which batteries are the most effective in replacing diesel trains," he added. This will accelerate the decarbonisation of rail transport in the regional sector, benefiting many passengers in the UK who use the train for work and for social activities." You can now sign up to attend the fifth annual Net Zero Festival , which will be hosted by BusinessGreen on October 22-23 at the Business Design Centre in London. Download