Travelling by rail is better for the environment, saves resources and uses less energy.
Energy plays a central role in the provision of sustainable mobility – whether it be the 16.7 hertz traction current powering the trains, the 50 hertz household current powering the stations, office buildings and railway infrastructure, or the thermal energy heating the buildings. To move 17% of passenger traffic and 38% of freight traffic, rail transport requires just 5% of all the energy consumed by road transport in Switzerland.
Since 2019, SBB has been procuring its 50 hertz electricity from renewable sources. 90% of the power used to run SBB trains comes from hydropower. The remaining 10% is covered by nuclear energy and photovoltaic systems. In future, SBB wants to further increase the proportion of trains powered by renewable energy. To replace the remaining share from nuclear energy, SBB will obtain industry-standard certificates of origin for renewable energy supplies, on one hand, and increase its own power production long-term with hydropower and photovoltaic systems on the other.
SBB will further expand its rail services in the coming years. For this reason, its energy demand will continue to grow despite its immense efforts to become more energy efficient. SBB will therefore undertake additional efforts in three key areas.
By 2030, SBB aims to improve its energy efficiency by around 30% compared with 2010. That equates to 850 gigawatt hours of energy or the annual power consumption of around 200,000 households. To achieve this ambitious goal, SBB is implementing extensive energy-efficiency measures in passenger and freight services, buildings and infrastructure facilities. As energy requirements will increase long-term with the continual expansion of services, additional energy-efficiency measures will be needed to meet them. For example, this includes the optimisation of train control and the procurement of energy-efficient trains. This will ensure the long-term energy requirements of 2,500 gigawatt hours a year will not be exceeded.
Since 2018, SBB has been reviewing and tapping into its potential to generate new renewable energy from photovoltaic systems. By 2040, SBB aims to produce 160 gigawatt hours a year from photovoltaic systems installed on its buildings and sites. SBB will reach an initial milestone of 100 gigawatt hours a year by 2030. 160 gigawatt hours is equivalent to the power requirements of around 40,000 households.
SBB has been gradually reducing the use of fossil fuels since 2020 and is replacing technical gases in switching and cooling systems with more climate-friendly alternatives. It will cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 50% by 2030 (compared with 2018). SBB aims to cut over 90% of its emissions by 2040. The residual emissions of 8% are set to zero with negative emissions, i.e. the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
