Rail freight company, DB Cargo has announced that all of their trains operating for renewable energy company Drax Group will be powered by Hydro-treated Vegetable Oil (HVO fuel).
All freight both in and out of the UK’s largest renewable energy plant near Selby will be transported on locomotives that are using HVO fuel.
Drax Group said the company has taken the decision to switch to the 100% renewable fuel as part of its ongoing programme to reduce its carbon footprint.
DB Cargo UK’s Chief Sales Officer Roger Neary said the decision by Drax to adopt the use of HVO in its trains was a win-win for both companies.
“The Government had set the rail industry a stretching target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and remove all diesel only traction by 2040 so the use of HVO in our trains will go a long way to helping us meet that challenge,” Roger explained.
According to Drax Group, the DB Cargo trains powered on HVO will provide around 57% of Drax’s total biomass, helping the global energy company produce enough renewable electricity to power almost 2.3m homes, equivalent to all of the households in Yorkshire and the Humber.
DB Cargo UK currently transport around 4.5 million tonnes of biomass pellets to Drax Power Station each year.
They operate around 60 trains a week and approximately 3,000 trains a year to the site.
Roger further emphasised that ‘Until a firm commitment is made to electrification of the UK network, HVO is the only credible solution to rail freight decarbonisation.
He said more services could be operated with HVO if the right policies and incentives were in place to enable more customers to make the switch.’
HVO is marketed as ‘one of the world’s purest and greenest fuels.’
It is synthetically made through the hydro-treatment process from vegetable oils or animal fats which significantly reduces harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions when used in diesel vehicles and machinery.
The company stressed that rail freight is critical to the power station’s supply chain, transporting large volumes of biomass pellets to the plant which produces around 8% of the UK’s renewable power.
Bruce Heppenstall, Plant Director at Drax Power Station, said rail freight was already a more sustainable method of transporting the pellets than road, taking some 192,000 HGVs off the UK’s network each year.
Bruce added: “Drax Power Station uses high volumes of biomass to keep the lights on for millions of homes across the UK. Rail freight is a cleaner and greener option for transporting this material and our partnership with DB Cargo prevents thousands of additional journeys by HGVs across the UK’s road network.”