Travelling by train has been the most environmentally friendly way of transportation for a long time already. In the Netherlands they have now taken it to the next level using wind turbines to power all of its electric trains. The Dutch have a long history of using wind energy to advance. They used windmills to drain land covered by water since the 17th century. Energy company Eneco provides NS the energy to transport 600.000 people per day. That’s 1.200.000 train trips per day without any CO2 emissions. NS requires 1.2B kWh of wind-powered energy per year, which is the same amount all households in Amsterdam consume per year. The partnership with NS, allowed Eneco to invest substantially in the expansion of its wind turbine parks. Eneco and NS Dutch Railways only sealed the partnership in 2015. It shows what can be achieved on the road to a sustainable future when we really put our minds to it. In addition, NS has committed to lower its energy consumption by 2% per year. Since 2005 NS has already decreased its energy consumptions by 30%?

How Eneco can provide the required capacity to power the Dutch railways Eneco and NS originally planned to reach 100% of all trains to be powered by wind energy by 2018. But they were able to speed up this process and reached their objective one year earlier in January 2017. "If the Dutch railways sourced 100% of the 1.4 tWh of energy they needed each year from within the Netherlands, this would decrease availability and increase prices of green power for other parties," explains Eneco's Michel Kerkhof. "That is why half of the demand will be sourced from a number of new wind farms in Belgium and Scandinavia, which have been specifically assigned for this contract. A key objective is to avoid procuring energy from the limited existing number of sustainable energy projects in the Netherlands, thus promoting renewable growth both domestically and Europe-wide. "This partnership ensures that new investments can be made in even newer wind farms, which will increase the share of renewable energy," confirms Kerkhof. "In this way, the Dutch railways aim to reduce the greatest negative environmental impact caused by CO2 in such a way that its demand actually contributes to the sustainable power generation in the Netherlands and Europe. [brightvibes.com]