Energy Efficiency
Improving thermal comfort in rail vehicles is an important measure for increasing the attractiveness of public transport – air-conditioning in rolling stock can make a truly “sensible” contribution in this context.
This increase in thermal comfort for passengers requires a substantial amount of energy – up to 100 MWh/a in a regular railway carriage. While modern rail vehicles are already equipped with proven air-conditioning systems to ensure high thermal comfort, the issue of optimising energy consumption has not received the same attention.
Environmental and economic considerations, however, are increasingly forcing railway companies to find ways to realise untapped energy saving potentials, for example in the air-conditioning of rail vehicles. In this context it is essential to analyse the power consumption of A/C systems based on exact performance data under different environmental and operating conditions.
Rail Tec Arsenal has developed a standardised testing programme for this purpose. The tests are designed to measure the energy required for air-conditioning and provide the basis for optimising or verifying energy saving measures.
Additionally, these tests can be used to verify specific annual power consumption values under defined conditions for LCC analyses and to assess the energy efficiency of air-conditioning systems in the form of an energy label.
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