Electric-thermal collaborative system and control for hydrogen-fuel cell passenger trains in the UK’s winter

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative study on electric-thermal collaborative system for hydrogen-powered train, reutilising the waste heat from fuel cell system for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC). Firstly, a hybrid train simulator is developed to simulate the train’s motion state. Heat generation from fuel cell is estimated using a fuel cell model, while a detailed thermodynamic model for railway passenger coach is established to predict the heat demand. Furthermore, an electric-thermal collaborative energy management strategy (ETC-EMS) is proposed for the system to comprehensively optimise the on-train power distribution considering traction and auxiliary power. Finally, comparative analysis is performed among the train with electric heater (EH), heat pump (HP) and heat pump-heat reuse (HP-HR). The results demonstrate that, over a round trip, the proposed HP-HR with ETC-EMS recovers over 22.88% residual heat and saves 16.17% of hydrogen consumption. For the daily operation, it reduces hydrogen and energy consumption by 12.06% and 12.82 %, respectively. The findings indicate that collaborative optimisation brings significant improvements on the global energy utilisation. The proposed design with ETC-EMS is potential to further enhance the economic viability of hydrail and contributes to the rail decarbonisation.