In short, this means that both manufacturers offering hydrogen trains and those offering battery-powered trains can enter the procedure. As a result, the procedure may be won by… both.
– During the Economic Forum in Karpacz, Koleje Dolnośląskie became the first in Poland to carry passengers using hydrogen propulsion. By creating a modern railway in Lower Silesia, we want to be pioneers of new technologies, as demonstrated by KD ordering prototypes with propulsion that can confidently be called the fuel of the future – says Paweł Gancarz, Marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship.
The procedure is unusual in itself because its criteria are not defined in the conventional way. Koleje Dolnośląskie is offering train manufacturers an innovation partnership under which two of them will be able to supply two vehicles each. Each of these trains must have at least 120 seats and at least three pairs of doors. They must also be vehicles with “conventional” electric propulsion, drawing power through a pantograph from the overhead catenary.
And now for the most interesting part: the Lower Silesian operator states that an additional energy source is required, such as batteries, supercapacitors, hydrogen fuel cells or another solution. In short: it must be emission-free and an alternative to a diesel engine.
– In recent years, nearly a quarter of a million people in Lower Silesia have regained access to rail transport. However, not all the lines being rebuilt in the voivodeship are electrified, so we must find a solution, because transport in the European Union is moving away from combustion-powered vehicles. Koleje Dolnośląskie has found a way to test new technologies, including hydrogen technology, and to gain extensive experience in modern solutions over the next few years – says Michał Rado, Deputy Marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, responsible, among other things, for rail transport.
The innovation-partnership procedure also serves further objectives that are unusual for railway procurements. Train manufacturers meeting the criteria will have 30 months after signing an agreement with Koleje Dolnośląskie to build at least two of the ordered prototypes. The manufacturer and the operator will then jointly test them on Lower Silesian routes for 12 months.
– The vehicles will be assessed according to maintenance costs, reliability coefficients and efficiency. There has never been such a procedure in the history of railways in Poland, and a large group of our employees spent many months working on it, ultimately developing the best possible solution – says Damian Stawikowski, president of Koleje Dolnośląskie.
Once testing is complete and the assessment of the solutions has been published, the operator will have open pathways to order additional vehicles that received the best evaluations in the procedure. Thanks to this procedure, the company’s fleet could grow by 18 trains in total: two prototypes from one manufacturer and 16 from the other—if the operator chooses the full option in the order.
At present, passenger trains running on Polish tracks are powered exclusively by electricity or diesel. Several operators also use units combining both systems. However, no passenger operator uses the solutions announced in Koleje Dolnośląskie’s procedure.
These solutions are not unknown in Europe, however: battery-powered trains have already been ordered by the Danes and Croatians, while the Czechs are testing them—in the Moravian-Silesian Region, just beyond the borders of the Silesian Voivodeship. Hydrogen-powered trains, meanwhile, have been tested by the Germans, French and Spaniards.
If the procedure concludes with the signing of an agreement, Koleje Dolnośląskie will become a pioneer of these technologies in Poland. No other operator in the history of Polish railways has conducted a procedure to order trains using the model chosen by Koleje Dolnośląskie. At the same time, this model could be used because of its innovative nature—the solution proposed by the Lower Silesian operator does not overlap with trains currently being developed by manufacturers for the Polish railway market.
The announcement of the procedure has already been sent to the Official Journal of the European Union and will be published there within the next few hours.