East Japan Railway Tests Hydrogen-Hybrid Train

East Japan Railway Co has revealed a hydrogen-powered test train on Friday, equipped with an advanced fuel cell and battery system. The first such test train in Japan has been named HYBARI, which stands for Hydrogen-Hybrid Advanced Rail Vehicle for Innovation. In November 2021, JR East completed a trial run of its E-7 series Shinkansen bullet train in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture. During the trial, the 12-car E7-series bullet train was remotely piloted from a control centre. It travelled for nearly 5km from Niigata Station on the Joetsu Shinkansen line. JR East will conduct test runs for the two-car train on the Nanbu Line, which connects Tachikawa Station in Tachikawa, Tokyo and Kawasaki Station in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, as well as some other lines from late March, aiming to start commercial use in 2030.The new train is equipped with hybrid systems that make used of hydrogen-powered fuel cells and storage batteries as their source of electricity. High-pressure hydrogen from a storage tank on the train is pumped into a fuel cell system developed by Toyota Motor Corp. which generates electricity via chemical reactions from the oxygen in the air. The electricity is then sent to the batteries that can be tapped by the trains engines to drive locomotion.Toyota Motor has developed the fuel cell system for the train while the hybrid drive system is provided by Hitachi.The development cost for the test train, which can travel up to about 140 kilometers per charge of hydrogen, totaled some PY 4 billion. JR East group has a target of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions effectively to zero in fiscal 2050 and is hopeful an overhaul of its train fleet with HYBARI technology can help them achieve that goal.

East Japan Railway Tests Hydrogen-Hybrid Train

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