More biogas in our Norwegian freight transportation

DB Schenker in Norway is well on the way in the green shift, which contributes to a better environment in cities and urban areas. It also creates zero emissions, less noise and better accessibility as we now see a number of smaller vehicles in traffic. The majority of these vehicles are electrically powered.

"Work still to be done"

In fact, this part of our business accounts for about 10 percent of the total emissions from our Norwegian land transportation. So when we reach zero emissions in 2027, we still have a job to do. The long routes between terminals throughout our vast country. And here, the most important issue is the availability of liquid biogas filling stations. Currently, there are eight stations in place, with 16 new ones planned for 2024.  90 percent of our emissions come from our traffic, so this is of great importance to the success of the green shift. Extensive work is underway to achieve this in collaboration with our carriers and with organizations that facilitate access to fuel through the establishment of filling stations.

We must not forget that we already have several vehicles that run on biogas. There is a regular route for Ekornes between Sykkylven and Oslo. In terms of scheduled traffic, the Alnabru-Ålesund, Hamar-Alnabru and Sandefjord-Kristiansand lines are already running on biogas. In distribution (CoDi), a total of 22 vehicles are currently running on biogas.

The environmental battle unites many good forces

As we are now phasing in biogas on the longer routes, and with the combination of using trains (NRE), we can really offer environmentally friendly transportation over longer distances. For example, from Kristiansand to Tromsø. Many new electric vehicles are being phased in in Kristiansand, the line traffic has the opportunity to convert to biogas between Kristiansand and Oslo, NRE electric trains between Oslo and Narvik, the possibility of a route between Narvik and Tromsø with biogas and finally CoDi in the city of Tromsø, which will have a predominantly electric vehicle fleet by 2024.

So there are a lot of positive and exciting things happening in this area, and if we look back a few years, it is clear that we as an industry, together with our customers, are very actively participating in the green transition. This creates commitment and pride not only among us, but also among our partners and hopefully also our customers. The environmental fight is something that unites many good forces.

Nils-Petter Buer, Head of Communications Norway