“The objective (…) is not to stop SNCF trains”, confirmed Minister Delegate for Industry Roland Lescure on Monday.
The government has asked the SNCF to save energy, but not to prepare to run fewer trains this winter in the event of a power shortage, as Le Parisien claims, the Ministry of Transport said on Sunday. The daily affirms that the public company is working, at the request of the executive, on a degraded transport plan this winter in the event of severe electricity shortages, “a black scenario which would only be used as a last resort”. “The Ministry of Transport has not requested a measure of this nature from the SNCF,” the ministry told AFP.
At the end of July, the Ministers of Transport Clément Beaune and Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher asked all transport operators to work on a sobriety plan, as in many other sectors, “to contribute to the reduction in energy consumption. 10% energy”. And these must return their copy Tuesday morning, recalled a spokesperson. In addition, operators such as the SNCF provide “emergency and contingency plans in the event of a serious problem” such as a heat wave or energy supply problems, which can lead to “last resort measures” . “But this is separate from sobriety measures and does not respond to a specific government order,” insisted the spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport.
By advocating sobriety, the government encourages “the hunt for waste”. “It is not asking companies or public services to lower or cease their activity,” she explained. “The objective (…) is not to stop SNCF trains”, confirmed Minister Delegate for Industry Roland Lescure on Monday. “The number of trains, except in an extremely adverse scenario (…), in special cases where we should ration energy, we will have all the trains we want, for, for example, going on vacation at Christmas”, he said on Franceinfo.
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A “false good idea” would also be to slow down the TGVs to save energy because this would disrupt transport plans, also noted Roland Lescure. “Like all companies, we are working in September at the request of the government on an energy sobriety plan”, for his part indicated a spokesperson for SNCF Voyageurs. “We are working through all scenarios as part of this sobriety plan. None is privileged and none is decided”, he assured. “We will adapt to government requests as we have always done during the Covid period”.
The SNCF, a large consumer of electricity, has intensified its actions for several months to reduce its energy consumption, for example by emphasizing “eco-driving”, a more flexible technique for driving trains. This makes it possible to reduce energy consumption by up to 10% “without reducing (the) speed and therefore without penalizing travelers”, noted the spokesperson.
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