Railroad orders fuel cell engines from Ballard Power Systems

Ballard Power Systems said Canadian Pacific Kansas City railroad has ordered an additional 18 200 kW fuel cell engines as part of the company’s expansion of its Hydrogen Locomotive Program.

Over the past two years, Ballard has supplied CPKC with 20 fuel cell engines for use in three different types of locomotives, with combined fuel cell power of 4MW. These locomotives underwent field testing in 2022 and early 2023 to prove the capabilities of Ballard’s hydrogen fuel cell technology in locomotive applications. Further development on range across

temperature variations, heavy hauling, fine-tuning auxiliary load to avoid waste, increased number of hours on current and additional units will support continued technological evolution, Ballard said. The success of these trials, combined with the need to achieve CPKC’s emissions goals, has resulted in the significant expansion of the original hydrogen locomotive program.

“Our hydrogen locomotive program has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from locomotive operations, supporting the transition to a lower-carbon future in the freight rail sector,” said Dr. Kyle Mulligan, AVP Operations Technology. “We are excited to expand development of these pioneering zero-emission locomotives with collaborators like Ballard.”

“We are thrilled to support our partner, CPKC, as they expand their development of fuel cell-powered locomotives to decarbonize critical transportation routes,” said Seungsoo Jung, Ballard’s Vice President of Rail & Emerging Markets. “Our teams have been working hand-in-hand to ensure success of this program and we are excited for the future with CPKC to help scale their growing hydrogen fleet.”