The latest estimations of the European Commission which consider national energy-efficiency objectives for 2020 established by member states in the context of the Europe 2020 Strategy say that the Union will only meet half its 20% objective by 2020. The European Council and the European Parliament have asked the Commission to adopt a new ambitious strategy in terms of energy efficiency to turn into account the consistent existing potential through a determined action.
As stressed in the Commission Communication “Roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050”, the energy efficiency can help the union to reach and even to exceed the target for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. Setting up energy efficiency responsibilities for energy regulating authorities would also be important for improving the energy efficiency of transport and distributing energy. Transport energy efficiency has been analysed in parallel in the White Paper on Transport adopted on March 28, 2011.
Railway transport is believed to be the only sustainable means of transport and the most energy- efficient from the point of view of the energy consumption; the latest innovations in industry in terms of energy saving for trains are strengthening the confidence that the railway sector is constantly improving this characteristic. Currently, the efficient energy consumption has almost become the business card of the transport operator – efficient consumption is now a matter of competitive advantage, cost reduction as well as long-term success. Another important problem for the rail sector is the method of measuring its energy performance for ensuring the best energy consumption management and meeting the objectives of cutting emissions.
“The process of rendering efficient energy consumption starts exactly with becoming aware of the losses derived from improved subsystems and components (vehicles and catenaries or power supply systems). The biggest energy saving potential is by optimising traffic flow in the very dense network with mixed freight/passenger traffic”, explained Pierre-Etienne Gautier, SNCF, during the Energy Efficiency Days, organised by UIC.
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