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Dual Fuel solution

for diesel Locomotives

Improved Ecology

Best Performance & Reliability

Brought to You

from a company with 12 year experience

ABOUT DIGAS DUAL FUEL SOLUTIONS

The inefficiency of the engines in long service life vehicles, coupled with high diesel prices, now makes fuel a major business problem for rail operator’s worldwide. The purchase of diesel fuel accounts for up to 60% of total locomotive operational costs. It is well recognised that methane is a significantly cleaner fuel for the environment than diesel.

DiGas offers the best from the technology across all SOA, including new to market OEM variations, adding more technological advancement by our proprietary solutions of intelligent engine management, mitigation strategies, highest substitution rates for the target market, while taking its competitive advantage of aftermarket scalability due to its unique modular design.

New Economy

The DiGas Dual fuel solution provides savings by allowing diesel locomotives to operate on a mixture of natural gas and diesel fuel.

More than 70% of all the world’s railway locomotives are powered by diesel engines, consuming more than 34 billion litres of diesel annually. DiGas offer the best from the technology across all state-of-the-art, including new to market OEM variations, adding more technological advancement by our proprietary solutions of intelligent engine management, mitigation strategies, highest substitution rates for the target market, while taking its competitive advantage of aftermarket scalability due to its unique modular design. The key USP offerings of the DiGas system are listed as follows:

  • 25-50% reduction in fuel costs (even for shunting operations)
  • Provides diesel like torque & performance
  • Reliable operation, with 100% diesel operation mode if required
  • Lower fuel price volatility
  • Cost effective option for compliance with emissions legislation (EU Stage IIIB, and future Stage V)
  • Highly scalable system: Suited to almost all locomotive diesel engines, with only minimal customisation

FUEL ECONOMY

Fuel costs typically represent up to 60% of locomotive operating costs for rail operators, using Compressed Natural gas (CNG) will allow them to reduce their fuel costs by €48,000 per year for a Shunter locomotive and €200,000 for a mainline locomotive in the average EU energy price (€0.40m3 gas + €0.20m3 compression and €1.09 litre of diesel) and operation environment.

ANNUAL COSTS

For example, a shunter locomotive that normally consumes 457 l of diesel fuel per day will see this amount decreased to 137 l (70% – average offset rate) while operating in Dual fuel mode. Since 1 l of diesel fuel is energy equivalent of 1 m3 of natural gas in Dual fuel mode, the 320 litres of diesel are replaced with 320 m3 of natural gas. The cost savings can be calculated by taking the 100% diesel mode cost (457 l per day x unit cost) and subtracting the Dual fuel mode cost (137 l diesel per day x unit cost + 320 m3 natural gas per day x unit cost).

The savings generated are directly related to the cost differential between natural gas and diesel fuel on an energy equivalent basis. Using a diesel cost of 1,09 EUR/L and a natural gas (CNG) cost of 0,60 EUR per m3, the approximate savings in this example would be 48 000 EUR per year for one shunter locomotive.

Emission Reduction

The NOx emissions using DiGas Dual fuel system in CNG mode is up to 90% lower in comparison to diesel fuel operation. CO2 Emissions are likewise reduced by approximately 60-80% if Bio-CNG is used. Emissions of SOx are almost zero and mainly depend on the quality of the pilot fuel used.

Best Performance & Reliability

Due to the effective engine management strategy based on quantitative dynamic selection of fresh charge components in accordance to limitations set by thermal models, extensive scientific tests on dedicated laboratory engine model and empirical verification, DiGas dual-fuel system offers state of the art diesel-like operation irrespective the engine type, it’s condition and age even under the conditions of improper servicing the engine itself.

12 Year Experience

Proven In-Field Operation

DiGas Dual fuel system is a proprietary patented dual fuel low-cost technology system, tailored for the locomotive sector and caters to a wide range of locomotive engines.

Our CEO Petr Dumenko has been responsible for the design of retro-fit dual-fuel systems for over 2,800 diesel engines (trucks, vans, buses, tractors), making him one of the most proven and seasoned experts in the field of dual fuel retrofit/conversions.DiGas has been successful in making impressive development gains with Dual fuel technology, starting from year 2013, when research was carried out on High Horsepower (HP) dual fuel technology for locomotive market.

This resulted in the Dual fuel technology concept being formulated and successfully tested. In year 2014 DiGas created small-scale Dual fuel technology and HP diesel injection control system (DICS) developed in framework of European Regional Development fund (ERDF).

After two years of R&D activities, in year 2016 Dual-Fuel technology tuned and scaled-up for the larger locomotive diesel engine. Technology mounted on ChME3 locomotive engine K6S310DR and installed on engine-stand at Daugavpils Locomotive Engineering Plant.