RailfanGXYI was under the impression that with the GG20 and GK10, the small engine ran continously, while the battery bank amplified its horsepower to the designated amount for traction.
I believe CSSHegewisch is correct about all the early commercial 'green switchers'. They have a large battery bank that does all the 'tractive' power and takes the regeneration; their small engine does nothing but trickle-charge the battery at an optimal rate for the chemistry used (read up on the various limitations of lead-acid batteries for more on how to do this right).
This is in specific contrast to 'parallel hybrid' cars, where the output of the IC engine and the traction motor/battery can be added to produce high transient acceleration. For a variety of reasons that is not an approach that is preferred on locomotives. Note that I said 'in theory' (the situation being a bit different for a purpose-built train like iLINT, and there being a premium for having higher repeated acceleration rate with limited IC "genset" capacity however the power is developed.
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