Gauthier Delomez 10:26 a.m., November 3, 2021, modified at 10:27 a.m., November 3, 2021

While the COP26 is taking place in Glasgow, the CEO of the Alstom group Henri Poupart-Lafarge highlights the use of hydrogen in the transport sector, and in particular the train, to lower the carbon footprint.

He was the guest of Dimitri Pavlenko at 6:40 am in Europe Matin.

INTERVIEW

Can the hydrogen train be the big winner at COP26?

While transport is one of the sectors that has increased its CO2 emissions over the past ten years, reaching 25% of global emissions, rail mobility can take advantage of its low carbon footprint.

"The train is a solution, not the only one of course, for everything that is the backbone of tomorrow's transport", first considers Henri Poupart-Lafarge, CEO of the Alstom group, on Europe 1.

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The CEO of the railway group, which has become number two in the world after its merger with the Canadian Bombardier in early 2021, is pleased to see the issue of transport being at the center of the concerns of the COP26 in Glasgow.

The opportunity for him to highlight the use of the train, and in particular the technological innovation of the hydrogen train.

A solution for non-electrified lines

While electricity is the train's main energy source, 45% of the French rail network is not yet electrified.

This is why hydrogen can be one of the solutions.

"We launched this train in 2014. The first prototypes ran in 2018, upstream of the hydrogen plan announced by Nicolas Hulot", adds the CEO of Alstom, while the former Minister of Ecological Transition invested 100 million euros on the table.

"Today, we are talking about 7-8 billion euros, so we have changed dimension", he underlines, specifying that there "will be a line fully equipped with hydrogen trains" next summer in Germany.

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In total, "one out of two railway lines in Europe is not electrified", recalls Henri Poupart-Lafarge, which represents a quarter of the train fleet.

"These are generally less dense tracks than electrified tracks. This is to say the effort that must be made by 2035 to replace a quarter of the trains in circulation with hydrogen trains", continues the CEO.

A problem of compensated cost in the future?

According to group figures, the cost of this innovative means of transport would amount to two euros per kilometer against 16 cents for diesel. "There is a cost problem which is shared by all the players," he admits. But the bet on hydrogen could lower prices in the future: "This objective will be achieved thanks to the reduction (in costs) of all the components of the sector: electrolysers built in larger quantities, batteries more efficient fuel and less expensive to maintain ... ", lists Henri Poupart-Lafarge.

If there is a non-green hydrogen, produced from gas or hydrocarbons, green hydrogen is produced from carbon-free energies, which makes it an ecological solution in the long term. "The hydrogen effort must be pursued by the whole of an industry, not just the train", comments the CEO of Alstom. However, this means of transport lends itself the best to use this energy, with recharging stations that can be installed in depots.

"There are ecosystem projects, multimodal recharging stations," says Henri Poupart-Lafarge, who stresses that Alstom will not produce hydrogen, but will help develop its use for other means of transport.

"The train in itself justifies a charging station given its consumption. But we can provide hydrogen, especially for coaches, buses and why not tomorrow, light vehicles or heavy vehicles."