Horizon Fuel Cell Group has partnered with Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd. (BHEL) on plans to commercialize fuel cell powered locomotives serving the Indian market under a 10-yr strategic tie-up. The partnership brings together two strong leaders in their respective domains and comes at a crucial stage in India’s efforts to leverage H₂ under the Government of India’s “Green H₂ Mission”.

There has been a dramatic uptick of interest across India regarding the role of H₂ for cleaner industry, decarbonized transportation, clean fertilizers, chemicals and steel, and new export opportunities such as ammonia. Trains formerly operating on diesel can be replaced by zero emission locomotives through heavy duty fuel cells such as those already supplied at scale by Horizon.

BHEL is a leading enterprise in India, a driving force of engineering and manufacturing capabilities at a national level and is responding proactively to the dual challenge and opportunity posed by the imperative to transition difficult to abate industrial activities and rail operations away from fossil fuels.

Horizon is delivering mature heavy duty fuel cell technology, heavily proven through the deployment of thousands of systems in demanding applications. These systems have gained broad recognition in the marketplace, differentiated via both commercial and performance characteristics, enabling the most competitive zero emission operations to be realized.

Horizon’s next-generation VLS-IV Series 400-kW fuel cell stack will make zero emission heavy duty applications much more compelling, through reduced fuel consumption and longer lifetime. In most applications, H₂ consumption will be reduced by up to 20%, making H₂ a commercially attractive alternative to diesel, while delivering zero emission operations.