French railway company SNCF plans to earmark 1 000 hectares of solar panels by 2030 to cover 15 to 20% of its own electricity needs. The plans would make the railway company one of France’s largest green power producers.

The SNCF is making this switch to secure supplies and control costs (between 2022 and 2023, it had a cost increase of 700 million euros due to the rise in the price of electricity), not to mention the issue of ecological transition. The plan involves an investment of around 1 billion euros or 1 million euros per megawatt.

1 000 MWp

The SNCF buys an average of 9TWh of electricity each year to ensure the daily circulation of its 15 000 trains across the territory and to supply its 3 000 stations as well as its industrial and tertiary buildings.

Now it wants to install 1 000 MWp or the equivalent of a nuclear reactor.  By comparison, one megawatt of power can supply about 1 000 households with electricity at the same time.

SNCF Renouvelables

SNCF is France’s biggest electricity consumer, just as the NMBS/SNCB is Belgium’s. For this solar panels project, with panels notably installed on its buildings and car parks but also along its railway lines, it will set up a new subsidiary, SNCF Renouvelables.

It would compete with energy producers like Engie or Neon, although being behind, while these companies are also planning to develop solar very strongly in the next decade.

French or European suppliers

The SNCF, the second landowner behind the State, is already in the process of installing solar panels in the car parks of around a hundred small stations and on large stations such as Nîmes-Pont du Gard, Valence, Avignon, and soon Angers and Paris-Nord.

SNCF has a property portfolio of 12 million square meters of buildings and more than 100 000 hectares of land. Ultimately, a maximum of 10 hectares of land could be exploited. It also has a total of 15 000 km of electrified railway lines,

Currently, more than 80% of SNCF’s trains run on electricity, and SNCF promises, if possible, to source in Europe for the projects.

For the project, they will also work on the development of longitudinal solar panels, which can be installed along railway tracks, a technology that does not exist today. For this, contacts with manufacturers, such as the Alsatian producer Voltec Solar, have been established.

SNCF wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from its transport activities by 30% by 2030 and by 50% from its fleet real estate compared to 2015. The objective is to have a net zero emission in 2050, in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

Extra investment

As recently as February, Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne announced that France plans to strengthen its rail network with an investment of some 100 billion euros by 2040.

In an interview with Le Monde newspaper on the financing of that plan, the CEO of the public railway company, Jean-Pierre Farandou, now says that the Prime Minister has raised the idea of harnessing polluting transport activities, such as heavy goods vehicle companies, via the contribution of motorways or the air tax.

In that context, Farandou points out that in Germany, a law is being prepared to increase motorway tolls for trucks in to finance the rail network.