State Secretary for the Environment Jochen Flasbarth and Deutsche Bahn Board Member Ronald Pofalla inspect testing programme for air cycle air conditioning systems

At the end of October 2016, State Secretary for the Environment Jochen Flasbarth and Deutsche Bahn Board Member Ronald Pofalla visited the ICE plant in Munich. There they were able to find out the latest news from the testing programme for a new generation of air conditioning system, which is being supported by the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUB). The maintenance-friendly air cycle air conditioning system was developed by Liebherr-Transportation Systems. Since it does not need any refrigerant and instead only uses air from the atmosphere for cooling, the system is also particularly environmentally-friendly. During the course of the event, all of the participants were able to experience the excellent performance of the air conditioning system for themselves during a test run in a train.

Heiko Lütjens, Managing Director & CTO of Liebherr-Aerospace & Transportation SAS, said: "We are very proud to be working together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment and project partner Deutsche Bahn to continue developing this environmentally-friendly air conditioning system for rail cars. Our air cycle air conditioning technology is allowing us to make an important contribution to sustainable passenger transport."

The air cycle air conditioning system is currently being used for testing purposes in an ICE 3 train of Deutsche Bahn operating in regular rail service.

State Secretary for the Environment Jochen Flasbarth commented: "We will only be able to achieve the environmental protection targets of the Federal Government if our traffic systems are largely greenhouse gas-neutral by 2050 at the latest. Doing away with refrigerants containing greenhouse gases in train air conditioning systems will help to achieve this. This is why the Federal Ministry for the Environment is supporting a project for the further development of air cycle air conditioning technology. I am delighted that Deutsche Bahn is voluntarily moving towards 'natural' refrigerants and that Liebherr Transportation is contributing its innovative expertise to the effort."

Ronald Pofalla, Board Member of Deutsche Bahn responsible Economic, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, stated: "We stand for sustainable climate protection. That's why we want to continuously reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Part of this effort includes the use of environmentally-friendly air conditioning systems in our trains. We are working actively with partners from industry to achieve this."

The government-supported testing programme will continue through to the spring of 2018.