This text is part of the special Research section
In 2021, less than 20% of energy came from renewable sources in the United States and Canada. By setting up the Collaborative Center on Energy and its Transition (C2ET), Concordia University brings together an ecosystem of researchers and industrial partners to electrify society and enable a more sustainable future.
“In North America, the majority of trains run on diesel,” laments Karim Zaghib, full professor at Concordia University and specialist in lithium batteries. Anyone with asthma points out that up to 8.8 million people worldwide can die each year from causes related to particulate pollution, according to a study conducted by Health Canada.
Karim Zaghib joined Concordia University a year ago, where he chairs the C2ET, which aims to become the benchmark for the design and industrialization of energy systems based on renewable energy. Its mission is to design integrated systems based on electrochemical devices and hydrogen, with a view to their marketing. It focuses in particular on new generations of batteries and the storage and production of hydrogen, in order to be able to integrate them into energy systems. Several companies are already industrial partners of C2ET, such as The Electric Company (school buses, city buses and trucks), Taiga (snowmobiles and other electric off-road vehicles) and Alstom.
Clean trains
The C2ET and Alstom have signed a letter of intent for a collaboration whose axis will be defined by the end of 2023. “We are in the process of launching our innovation center dedicated to green rail mobility solutions, and it is natural for us to forge collaborations with the academic world (we have already signed agreements with McGill University, in particular). To develop alternatives to diesel trains in North America, we need to surround ourselves with experts,” says Éric Rondeau, who heads this Alstom center.
The collaboration with the C2ET will help Alstom to set up future hybrid, battery or hydrogen green propulsion platforms, adapted to the North American market. “It’s not about developing ideas to do research only, but also about moving to the scaling and industrialization stage with the professionals who will play an important role”, explains Karim Zaghib. Because the industry is currently not mature for these green solutions, explains Éric Rondeau. “We cannot operate a hydrogen train as we would on a traditional electricity network. We must build infrastructure for its deployment and refueling, and rethink the entire value chain to find the right economic crossroads so that the solution is viable and competes effectively with fossil fuels,” he anticipates.
A collaborative center
Alstom needs to surround itself with university teams to document the comparable elements (technological and operational) between diesel and hydrogen trains in North America in order to get the rail sector on board in decarbonization, explains Éric Rondeau. “We need to change how we operate with the academic ecosystem and with industry. By working together, we will create a new market,” he explains.
To design and set up smart and viable green networks, an entire ecosystem is invited to work together by the C2AND. “It’s a collaborative center,” says Karim Zaghib, which brings together industrialists, Canadian researchers – from the University of Montreal and Toronto, in particular – and foreigners, in conjunction with the governments of Quebec and Canada. “To support the entire value chain, you have to be able to explain it to the industry, but also to the decision-makers who will have to put in place the regulations necessary for the deployment of these new technologies in order to accelerate the energy transition. Innovations to electrify the train can also be used for other forms of transport,” says Éric Rondeau.
In 2026, Karim Zaghib will chair the International Meeting on Lithium Batteries Conference in Montreal. “The biggest universities in the world, like Stanford, Berkeley or Oxford, and Nobel Prize winners will participate. This conference will have significant economic benefits and will help our whole society, including young people, from primary school to university, who will be invited”, says the one who received in 2022 the Kalev Pugi prize awarded by the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Canada.
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.