SMAHRT Energy Infrastructure for Rail Networks

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£247,750

Jan. 1, 2022

March 31, 2022

Smart Ports Limited in collaboration with Arcadis Consulting (UK) Limited and CLARA Energy Pty Limited is proposing a Feasibility Study (FS) to review the requirements to distribute and utilise Green Hydrogen on a vast rail network within Australia to offer a more sustainable solution, assisting with decarbonisation of the transport sector and overall Australian decarbonisation targets.

Smart Ports are currently developing technology, utilising the established process of dissociating Ammonia to produce Hydrogen, to provide a refined, scaled down and extremely mobile solution. This is in the form of SMAHRT (Scalable Modular, Ammonia to Hydrogen Refuelling Terminals), a containerised fuel-cell grade Hydrogen production and supply infrastructure.

This well-established process of dissociating Ammonia to produce Hydrogen was perfected over 100 years ago. However the traditional Ammonia cracker technology used in large, centralised plants in the metallurgy and oil gas industries, produce low purity Hydrogen.

Development and deployment of SMAHRT technology provides a significant opportunity to enable the use of Green Hydrogen in the rail sector, where rail line electrification is neither practical nor economical.

Decarbonisation of transport sectors and large-scale projects, provide a significant opportunity to integrate this technology. We have identified the need and ability to develop the necessary infrastructure to help decarbonise the railway sector and export the SMAHRT technology to Australia.

INLAND RAIL project between Brisbane and Melbourne in Australia is currently under construction. This route is approximately 1,700km in length and is currently planned to run on fossil fuels.

Smart Ports and Arcadis believe it is necessary to research and develop the basis for which the Hydrogen can be generated and converted to Ammonia for effective distribution and utilisation by the rail transport industry, to support its decarbonisation. It is currently anticipated that a single train travelling from Melbourne to Brisbane requires 33,500l of diesel and emit approximately 88,000kg of CO2 as well as significant particulates and NOX emissions.

This proposal can align timing of production of Green Hydrogen with completion times of INLAND RAIL, to decarbonise the rail operation, if the technology can be satisfactorily demonstrated suitable and compatible.

This project aims to research and develop the basis for utilising SMAHRT as the tool for decarbonising the INLAND RAIL project and ascertain the market opportunity to maximise impact for the commercialisation of the technology within the Australian market. Clearly the decarbonisation benefits by optimising efficiency of this generation and implementation of zero emission technology, are substantial.