The European railway network is the densest in the world and features the highest percentage of electrification – nearly 70%. Approximately 80% of total transport volumes is hauled on the electrified part of the network. Nevertheless, diesel traction plays an important role in providing rail services and serves as the backbone of railway operation in countries with little electrification, such as the UK, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Ireland and Greece.
The total emissions from rail diesel traction are very low at the moment compared to the whole transport sector (less than 2%). The emissions of noxious gases have already decreased by 11% from 1990 to 2008 and it is expected that emissions will further decrease due to the introduction of cleaner technologies and limit values (stage IIIB), smaller diesel traction fleet and lower total mileage and electrification.
The CleanER-D project, launched by UIC, next to member state partners, has been strongly focusing on the socio-economic and green aspects of rail diesel applications. It is sector-wide agreed that energy efficiency is best reached by reducing fuel consumption and by minimizing both CO2 and pollutant emissions of diesel-driven trains through hybrid solutions.
The partners evaluate the energy saving potential of on-board energy storage system concepts. A conventional diesel-driven train mainly dissipates the braking energy into heat by the braking resistor.
The hybridisation subproject in CleanER-D is investigating technologies of hybrid drive systems for rail applications and their influence on reduction of fuel consumption and emissions due to the several objectives such as the identification of the state-of-the-art hybrid technologies, the definition of “standard duty cycles“ for different rail vehicle types, the investigation of influences on energy use and emission of the drive systems and management of the auxiliary systems, the comparison of innovative energy storage technologies, the assessment of impacts due to hybrid technologies and recommendations for further reduction of fuel consumption and emissions using innovative hybrid technologies.
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