Add new battery electric vehicles for poorly frequented lines where

electrification does not pay off!

• A suitable battery adds 30% to the mass of a car but only 10% to the mass of a train

• A suitable battery adds 50% to the price of a car but only 15% to the price of a train

• Including the battery costs in the electricity price would triple the electricity price

• Yet, the energy cost would still be lower compared to a diesel railcar!

• Not a new idea, by the way:

it did work even with old heavy lead batteries from 1955 to 1995!

Is railway transportation really energy efficient?And could it still be further improved?

This diesel-hydraulic regional train consumes 1.7 litres of diesel fuel per km

Fuel cost: 0.9 cents per km and seat!

This electric long-distance train consumes17 kWh of electricity per km

Electricity cost: 0.2 cents per km and seat

This diesel-electric express train causes 1,800 € of fuel cost for one single trip from

Berlin to Copenhagen, so some 15 to 50 seats (out of 195) have to be occupied

alone for recovering the fuel cost!

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Power requirement car and IC train

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What to do about it? There are three action areas:

A car uses 100% of its engine power to run at maximum speed

A train uses 33% of its locomotive power to run at maximum speed

A car accelerates faster than a train?

Well, initially yes, but somewhat later on...

A car rolls 3.5 km disengaged

A train has not even lost half of its speed after 32 km!

Force and power of a locomotive – availability and requirement for running at constant speed in a

flat area

Support further electrification where not yet in place!

• Unfortunately a combustion engine that can suck up fumes and convert them back into fuel and fresh air during braking has not yet been invented

• A diesel engine in a railway vehicle spends >90% of its operating time idling

• The nature of a diesel engine is pretty well suited for driving a car

• The nature of a diesel engine matches the physics of a railway vehicle quite poorly

• Electric drives are optimal in either case, hence there is much more improvement potential on the rail than on the road!

Improve electrified transportation where already in place!

A regional train serving the 160 km from Aachen to Dortmund with 22 stops reaches a maximum speed of 140 km/h

• All correlated friction losses sum up to an energy requirement of 800 kWh

• All acceleration related energy demand piles up to 1600 kWh

So 50% of energy could be fed back, but only 10% is actually recovered! Hence:

• Replace old locomotives: 10% → 20%

• Improve brake management 20% → 50%

• Replace locomotive hauled trains with railcars (dispersed drives) → >50%

www.slideshare.net/LeonardoENERGYDeutschland/how-energy-efficient-really-is-railway-transportation

Two times yes! While everybody speaks about the electric car, the real potential lies on the rail!

Stefan Fassbinder, Deutsches Kupferinstitut, Düsseldorf / European Copper Institute, Brussels

www.kupferinstitut.de www.leonardo-energy.org http://leonardo-web.org/de