Transport CO2 price to cost German railway up to 50 million euros in 2021

Germany’s state-owned railway company Deutsche Bahn will have to pay between 40 million and 50 million euros for the use of fossil fuels like diesel and heating oil, news agency dpa reports in an article carried by WirtschaftsWoche. As the CO2 price on heating and transport fuels increases year-by-year, this amount could rise to 105 million to 135 million euros by 2026, the Federal Government Commissioner for Railways, Enak Ferlemann, said in an answer to an inquiry by the pro-business Free Democrats' (FDP) transport politician Torsten Herbst. Deutsche Bahn aims to become climate neutral by 2040 and is increasingly sourcing electricity from renewables. So far it covers around 60 percent of its annual electricity consumption of around ten terawatt-hours from renewable sources. As of 2023, the company will receive 190 gigawatt-hours of hydropower from Norway per year, according to a new cross-border power purchase agreement (PPA) with Norwegian supplier Statkraft. But some 40 percent of Germany’s railways are not yet electrified and 250 million litres of diesel are used per year to fuel trains, dpa writes. FDP politician Herbst criticises that infrastructure modernisation and the use of alternative fuels such as hydrogen are not happening fast enough. 

In addition to the EU-wide CO2 price on electricity and industry emissions, Germany introduced a carbon price on heating and transport fuels in the beginning of 2021, at the same time taking first steps to make the use of power in these sectors cheaper. The move is to incentivise the transport industry, drivers, businesses and home owners to switch to more climate-friendly transport and heating solutions.