Prof. Chen Weirong won 2 Gold Awards and 2 Silver Awards at the 48th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva in March 2021. Respectively, the project of Fuel Cell Hybrid Power Tramway and the project of High-power and High Performance Fuel Cell Hybrid Power System won the Gold Award while the project of Fuel Cell Shunting Locomotive and the project of Fuel Cell Hybrid Power System for Rail Traffic won the Silver Award.

Founded in 1973, the Geneva International Invention Fair, one of the longest, largest and most well-known invention fairs in the world, organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Swiss Federal Government and the City of Geneva, aims to showcase a variety of innovative technologies and inventions around the world. This year, the exhibition attracted more than 600 projects from over 20 countries and regions. Exhibiting on behalf of NEEC for the first time, Prof. Chen’s projects stood out among the global innovative inventions, which indicates that NEEC's scientific and technological innovations in the field of new energy rail transit have been recognized by international peers.

Since 2008, Prof. Chen’s team has been firstly conducted research on the application of hydrogen fuel cells in rail transit in China. After more than ten-year researches, the team has broken through the key technologies of high-power fuel cell optimization control, energy management of hybrid power system, fault diagnosis and life prediction. It has led the development of China's first fuel cell electric locomotive and the world's first fuel cell hybrid tram, and provided the core technology for China's first hydrogen fuel cell hybrid locomotive, which continuously lead the technical development of hydrogen rail transit in China.