SBB trains will only run on electricity from renewable sources from 2025
Published: Tuesday, Dec 17th 2024, 12:00
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From January 1, 2025, SBB trains will run exclusively on electricity from renewable sources. As before, the majority of this will be electricity from hydropower. The rest is renewable electricity procured on the market from Switzerland and the rest of Europe.
Renewable traction current will be certified with guarantees of origin from 2025, SBB announced on Tuesday. To date, around 90 percent of traction current has been generated from hydropower. The remaining ten percent came from nuclear power. SBB will no longer use this electricity for rail operations, but will sell it on the electricity market.
The switch to 100 percent renewable traction current is part of SBB's sustainability strategy. SBB's aim is to make a contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement and halve its operational greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. SBB aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 90 percent by 2040. In addition to renewable energy, SBB is also focusing on climate-friendly alternatives to climate-damaging technical gases, such as more environmentally friendly refrigerants for the air conditioning of trains.
Alongside non-motorized traffic, train travel is the most climate-friendly mode of transport. According to SBB, it causes only 0.3 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions of all transportation in Switzerland. For 17 percent of passenger traffic and 38 percent of freight traffic, rail only requires five percent of the energy consumed by land transportation in Switzerland.
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