Almost two years have passed since the first announcements that Romania wanted to buy hydrogen trains, but they are still many years away. Why are we missing auctions on the assembly line? What does the project manager say? What are the pros and cons of these trains?

In March 2021, the then Minister of Transport, Katelin Drula, said that Romania wanted to test hydrogen trains because it was a new and promising technology.

Way too complicated

At the end of March 2022, the Authority for the Reform of Railways (ARF) is publishing a market consultation notice on the public procurement platform SEAP to prepare the purchase of rolling stock with non-repayable European funds, as well as hydrogen trains. At the time, the Authority for the Reform of Railways (ARF) said it intended to organize procurement procedures for hydrogen electric frames for short and long distances, targeting trains with a maximum number of seats for 200 seats.

At the end of April 2022, the Ministry of Transport approved the purchase of 12 hydrogen trains as part of a pilot project for testing some ecological trains. Among the serviced routes will be Bucharest – Otopeni Airport and Bucharest – Pitesti.

It seemed like we were on the right track, but we weren’t. There are NO hydrogen trains near us and we may miss the 2026 deadline. On February 7, 2023, the initial tender process was canceled due to lack of bids. The following day, ARF launched a new market consultation to obtain the additional elements needed to update the award documentation.

Romania can NOT buy new trains through ARF either, and here, as the Club Feroviar site also noted, there has only been one successful tender in six years. On hydrogen trains, the consultation launched on 8 February is the fourth market consultation launched by the ARF to understand what to ask for in a tender for hydrogen trains.

Obviously, there is an efficiency problem, because so many auctions are missed, procedures have to be repeated often, and everything (almost) always has to be done from the beginning.

The big downside is that there are no new trains on the CFR Călători network, neither conventional nor hydrogen, and the ones that are there don’t offer much comfort. In addition, this is a project that needs to be implemented urgently, as there is a threat of losing funding through the PNRR, the deadline for the implementation of the Project is August 2026.

When Romania completes the auction and knows who will supply the trains and where they will be produced, the matter will not be over. The trains are not “in stock”, they will not be ready at the factory immediately, they will have to be assembled, which will take a long time. Then, when they are finally ready for delivery, there will be certification and testing procedures, which will not be easy, given that these are completely new types of trains with special infrastructure requirements.

As Club Feroviar very well pointed out, it is not clear how the ARF could organize an auction for hundreds of millions of euros without having precise relevant, important information such as the terms of delivery or the methods of obtaining the hydrogen needed to run the train.

One thing should be made clear here: the introduction of hydrogen trains is a new and complex thing, because we are talking about much more than just the introduction of new and beautiful trains. This PNRR-funded investment target includes not only the purchase of frames, but also maintenance and hydrogen supply services for 15 years.

What reasons did ARF give for skipping the auction?

• the main reason for the lack of offers was the speed of fulfillment of the delivery conditions stipulated in the original specifications, especially in the current economic context, which is characterized by numerous crises affecting the production chains and the ability of suppliers to deliver rolling stock in a short time.

• legislative vacuum in Romania regarding the production, delivery and storage of hydrogen.

• technical notes on matters relating to acceleration, axle load, seating capacity and toilets.

The authorities also clarified a very important thing: rolling stock enterprises expressed their reluctance to fully assume the economic risks associated with the necessary component of fuel delivery, given the novelty of this technology, possible price fluctuations and the absence of regulations.

Hydrogen trains – Interesting, but expensive

Hydrogen trains are presented as a “green” alternative to diesel trains and can be a solution on non-electrified lines. In addition, they have several times more autonomy than battery trains. Germany, Holland, Italy, Austria, Great Britain, Poland and Sweden are the European countries most interested in this technology.

Alstom, Stadler, CAF and Siemens are European companies that have developed hydrogen trains. Alstom has been most in touch with the iLint model, which has been tested in several European countries since 2018. The French also held negotiations with the Romanian authorities.

The disadvantages of hydrogen trains are related to the high cost, the fact that hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels and requires a lot of storage space. The construction of supply infrastructure is also needed, and hydrogen is not suitable for high-speed trains, but for those that develop a maximum of 120-140 km/h.

Hydrogen is not free, but already combined with something else; to separate the hydrogen we need energy. Only after we have expended energy and obtained free hydrogen can we burn it.

The problem is that, due to the inevitable inefficiencies of hydrogen burning processes, less energy is produced than is spent on separating it from its compounds.

The emission level of the “RE-H” train depends on the method of hydrogen production, and this leads to other difficulties, since currently most hydrogen (over 90%) is produced from fossil fuels, in particular by steam reforming of methane. (steam methane reforming, SMR) and coal gasification.

Hydrogen train technology refers to trains equipped with hydrogen fuel cells that generate electricity.

The primary energy source is hydrogen, and the idea is that oxygen taken from the air combines with hydrogen inside the fuel cell to produce the electricity needed to run the train.

The traction battery is used for intermediate storage of braking energy, for acceleration and for auxiliary power.

The infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations is needed, and this is difficult and expensive, so it is an obstacle.

Missed a milestone in PNRR?

On February 7, former Secretary of State at the Ministry of Transport Horatio Cosmas accused Sorin Grindeana of missing another PNRR milestone that puts the entire €30 billion European program at risk, namely because the tender for 12 hydrogen trains was cancelled.

“The tender for 12 hydrogen trains has been cancelled. The result: Sorin Grindeanu misses another PNRR milestone and puts the entire €30 billion European program at risk. The ARF Railway Reform Authority, under the leadership of Grindianu, canceled the tender for hydrogen trains because no manufacturer submitted a single bid. The reasons are 100% related to the incompetence of the ARF due to the answers to any criticism of the uncertainty of the manufacturers concerned. Briefly, the dialogue between the manufacturers and ARF looked like this: Hydrogen train manufacturers: “ARF, please delay the submission for a while. ARF, there are some technical uncertainties. ARF, let’s have a meeting with all the bidders to clarify.” ARF: “No. No. No”. At the time of submission: zero bids. Consequence: the auction is cancelled. ARF: “We don’t know what happened, we will analyze it,” Horatio Cosmas wrote on Facebook.

On February 9, the head of the ARF also spoke at a conference about hydrogen trains, which are a “very important pilot project”, where, however, no offer was made “on the first try” to purchase such trains. .

And then he spoke about the need to adopt legislation. “This is the first concrete project of Romania investing in this new technology in the field of transport. In this context, the Government of Romania, together with the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Energy, has mobilized work on updating the legislation, as today the legislation on the construction and operation of a hydrogen filling station has not yet been fully developed. . We will resume the tender as soon as possible and the trains will be used to improve the quality of services. Except for the hydrogen engine, it’s a modern train like any other,” said Rosyanu, quoted by Agerpres.

ARF has been discussed with manufacturers of rolling stock

The Railway Reforms Authority (ARF) has organized a meeting with rolling stock manufacturers on February 13 and 14, 2023 to prepare new specifications for the procurement of 12 hydrogen fuel cell electric frames.

The management of the Romanian branches of the companies Alstom and Siemens, as well as representatives of the companies Pesa and Reloc, connected online, responded to the invitation of the ARF.

ARF President Stefan Rosianu emphasized the urgency of ARF procedures from the point of view of the source of funding for this investment, namely the PNRR, which provides for the deadline for implementation – August 2026.

“The ARF’s intention is to restart the tendering process as soon as possible in order to meet both the deadlines set in the PNRR and the legislation in the field of public procurement,” the ARF said.

Photo source: Dreamstime.com