There is a concurrently running Thread here…“Batteries a Possible Future Blow to Coal”
Apparently, Battery Technology, may have too many problems at present to provide a reliable power resource (?) To power very large mobile or stationary applications(?) The Thread mentioned above has moved on beyoned the OP’s original topic(?) Victrola1’s Post is as follows:
FTT:You can track what they are doing at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). There are plans for hydrogen bromide, or zinc-air batteries, or storage in molten glass, or next-generation flywheels, many claiming “drastic improvements” that can slash storage costs by 80pc to 90pc and reach the magical figure of $100 per kilowatt hour in relatively short order.“Storage is a huge deal,” says Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary and himself a nuclear physicist. He is now confident that the US grid and power system will be completely “decarbonised” by the middle of the century.
Without digging out my old issues of Trains, I recall in an article within the last few years, that Montana Rail Link was selling electricity from idle locos in their Missoula yard.
Back in the 80’s I believe, ComEd had a power outage at its Humboldt Park substation that blacked out a significant section of the West side of Chicago including the Metra Western Ave interlocking tower for multiple days. Metra used one of their FP40’s on a very short spur at the tower to provide temporary feed to the tower. More power than they needed but it did the job.
HEP is three phase 480V - no reason why a HEP equipped locomotive couldn’t supply power within the range of its capabilities. The F40’s could do 500 or 800KW, depending on when they were built.
Considering that the average home can run just fine with a 10KW backup generator for power outages, that means a locomotive could potentially power 50 to 80 homes from its HEP apparatus.
The prime mover generates over 2 megawatts, but not in a form suitable for feeding the grid.
In 1967 when I was stationed in South Korea, they were still using Steam Locomotives to move most of their trains [easy to hitch a cab ride]. They had recieved quite a number of new Diesel Electrics from the USAid program. These were mostly parked by factories suppling the electricity for operations since local power generation could not meet the need. I would guess that sometime later they were returned to train service.