The Railway Undertaking Advisory Board (RUAB) and the Steering Committee of the UIC Energy Billing Project took place at UIC in Paris last week on 3rd and 4th June.
The UIC Energy Billing project develops standard business processes which establish a traction energy settlement framework for Railway Undertakings and Infrastructure Managers for cross border traffic. Together with the standardization of metering equipment done by CENELEC this will enable Railway Undertakings to pay their electric energy according to the actual consumption (and not as a standard and undifferentiated contribution within the track access charge).
The Steering Committee acknowledged a strong role of the Railway Undertakings in the project. Furthermore it is proposed to combine the RUAB and the Steering Committee from this autumn and to give the Railway Undertakings an equal voice in the further work of this project. These changes recognise that:
• Railway Undertakings contribute around half the funding for the project
• Many of the ‘open points’ remaining in the project are of most interest to Railway Undertakings
The proposed changes are subject to ratification at the next Steering Committee meeting in September.
A new “draft” of the intended UIC leaflet on “Energy Billing”, has been finalized and presented to the UIC Forums in late April. The leaflet describes the processes and protocols for the exchange of energy consumption data between Infrastructure Managers and thereby contributes to interoperability in the European railway sector. It is intended to publish the leaflet end of 2008.
The Steering Committee decided to go forward with three main activities, during autumn 2008 and continuing into 2009:
1. Final Revision of the Leaflet in response to feedback leading to publication
2. Pilot Implementation Projects
a. Pilot tests of the procedures described in the draft UIC leaflet with on-board meters between Denmark and Germany, between Germany and France and between Belgium and France
3. Resolution of ‘open points’ – many arising from RU concerns, such as
a. How to treat trains with defective or no meters onboard?
b. How to deal with transmission energy losses?
c. What migration process can be envisaged from the existing situation where most locomotives are not equipped with meters to a target situation where most should be?
The Steering Committee also decided to intensify work at a political level with the European Rail Agency and the European Commission to ensure that the work of the project is compatible with the TSIs and Directives in this field. Moreover, communication of project results has been considered as one of the main tasks for the project consortium for the next months.
The next meeting of the Energy Billing Steering Committee will be on 17th September 2008 at UIC in Paris.
For more information please contact UIC Environmental Advisor Henning Schwarz (Schwarz at uic.asso.fr).