Faced with rising energy prices, particularly electricity, the government has called for a general mobilization. In particular, it invites manufacturers to reduce their consumption by 10% to avoid interruptions in the coming months.
The SNCF is concerned in the foreground. The operator is, in fact, the main industrial consumer of electricity in France with 10% of the total (and 1 to 2% of the total electricity consumption). Normally, your bill would be a billion euros a year.
Reduce the speed or the number of trains?
Faced with this demand for sobriety, the SNCF is already activating several levers. The most obvious would be to reduce the speed of the trains or, even worse, reduce the number of trains running in the event of severe power outages as claimed. the parisian.
But the operator rejects for the moment this scenario considered as a weapon of last resort. “It is not an option,” Christophe Fanichet, executive director of SNCF Voyageurs, has insisted for several months.
“This is independent of the sobriety measures and does not respond to a specific government order,” insists a SNCF spokesman on Monday. By advocating sobriety, the government encourages “waste hunting.” “It is not asking companies or public services to reduce or cease their activity,” he explained.
A statement confirmed by the government: “The Ministry of Transport has not requested a measure of this nature from the SNCF,” the ministry told BFMTV.
Eco-driving: the solution for SNCF
The public company highlights the eco-driving (or opti-driving) of the trains, which, it says, already allows it to reduce the electricity consumption of its trains by 10%. And ensure today that this practice will be “intensified”, which concerns above all long-distance lines with few stops, but which also applies to TERs.
What is eco driving? “Through an algorithm integrated in Sirius, the driver’s tablet, Opti-driving takes into account many parameters (speed, train position, track profile, etc.) to calculate and indicate in real time to the driver the optimal speed that must respect at all times. times, so that the train arrives perfectly on time while consuming as little energy as possible”, explains the SNCF.
In addition, the electric traction can be cut off when the train can continue its drive (especially on slopes). For example, on the Paris-Lyon line, a driver can travel 100 kilometers without consuming energy using the slopes, explains the SNCF.
It’s really the same approach a car driver might take on a day-to-day basis: avoid hard braking and enjoy driving downhill.
The carrier assures that this approach allows generating energy savings of 8 to 10% each year for the TGV INOUI and OUIGO without causing delays.
For the entire TGV fleet, this represents a saving of 2 million euros per month on the energy bill.
At the regional level, New Aquitaine applies this ecological driving to all its TERs and estimates the gain at 10% in savings.
From now on, a greater number of drivers will be trained in this eco-driving, says the operator.
The SNCF also aims to save money when a train is stopped, on the platform, it is an ecological car park. The engine consumption of a stationary train is a third of that of a moving train. Today, the technical evolution of hardware makes it easier to stop and restart a train engine compared to older models. What to improve gaspi hunting.
Betting on the TGV-M
As in other transport sectors (automotive, air), the SNCF is also committed to new train models to reduce consumption. Like the TGV-M, the fourth generation of the French high-speed train. In addition to its modular properties, its design, which contrasts with existing models, and more efficient motorization should allow future trains to save 20% energy. Alstom adds that these savings are also made possible by sending energy to the catenary during braking.
However, it is not expected to go into circulation before 2024. SNCF has ordered 115 examples of this new generation TGV.
produce your own electricity
It is still an experiment, but the SNCF wants to produce its own electricity mainly with solar panels. By 2030 it plans to install more than a million photovoltaic panels, mainly for complementary uses (lighting, etc.)
Replace diesel with clean energy
You should know that a quarter of its SNCF trains are still running on diesel and that 40% of its network is not electrified, mainly local and regional lines.
On these lines, the SNCF intends to run clean trains. First of all there is the hydrogen traintechnically ready but will not shoot commercially before 2025-2026.
And there will also be the hybrid train: diesel and electric batteries. A faster solution to implement than the hybrid. Because unlike this technology that requires the manufacture of new trains, hybrid energy only requires a transformation of existing thermal trains. A kind of recondition railway.
The use of batteries allows a fuel reduction of 20%, explain the SNCF and Alstom, without reducing the capacity of the train or its speed.
Source: BFM TV
