Transport traction energy
Nearly 500 TWh are consumed every year to move people and goods across France. Electricity accounts for 2.4%.
Traction energy consumed by transport on French territory, in TWh, by mode and by energy carrier. Covers passengers and freight, private and collective transport, as well as maritime and air transport (bunkers delivered in France) and pipelines.
Source: SDES - Annual transport report, chapter D, sheet “D1.e” (“Breakdown by mode of the traction energy consumption of transport on the territory”)
Traction energy
TWh consumed in 2024
Electricity share
against 1.8% in 2011
Electricity
TWh, of which 7.0 for rail
Electric cars
from 0.019 TWh in 2011 to 2.82 TWh
Where electricity stands
The four items where SDES isolates electricity, in TWh (areas), and the share it represents in total traction energy (line). The rise of electric cars first offsets the decline of rail before pushing the overall share up.
View data
| Year | Rail | Urban transport | Pipelines | Passenger cars | Total | Electricity share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 7.96 TWh | 1.23 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.02 TWh | 9.92 TWh | 1.81% |
| 2012 | 8.01 TWh | 1.3 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.03 TWh | 10.04 TWh | 1.86% |
| 2013 | 8.07 TWh | 1.33 TWh | 0.71 TWh | 0.04 TWh | 10.16 TWh | 1.94% |
| 2014 | 7.86 TWh | 1.3 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.05 TWh | 9.91 TWh | 1.9% |
| 2015 | 7.94 TWh | 1.34 TWh | 0.71 TWh | 0.07 TWh | 10.05 TWh | 1.92% |
| 2016 | 7.75 TWh | 1.33 TWh | 0.71 TWh | 0.11 TWh | 9.89 TWh | 1.9% |
| 2017 | 7.74 TWh | 1.33 TWh | 0.78 TWh | 0.15 TWh | 10 TWh | 1.88% |
| 2018 | 7.29 TWh | 1.34 TWh | 0.76 TWh | 0.2 TWh | 9.58 TWh | 1.81% |
| 2019 | 7.17 TWh | 1.28 TWh | 0.74 TWh | 0.28 TWh | 9.47 TWh | 1.78% |
| 2020 | 5.71 TWh | 1.21 TWh | 0.58 TWh | 0.35 TWh | 7.85 TWh | 1.8% |
| 2021 | 6.48 TWh | 1.32 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 0.74 TWh | 9.13 TWh | 1.91% |
| 2022 | 6.97 TWh | 1.29 TWh | 0.65 TWh | 1.33 TWh | 10.23 TWh | 2.02% |
| 2023 | 6.73 TWh | 1.12 TWh | 0.67 TWh | 1.97 TWh | 10.48 TWh | 2.13% |
| 2024 (p) | 6.97 TWh | 1.21 TWh | 0.67 TWh | 2.82 TWh | 11.67 TWh | 2.4% |
Electricity actually consumed for traction, as published by SDES: it includes neither network losses nor upstream generation energy. Pipelines carry products, not vehicles; they are isolated on that ground.
Source: SDES - Annual transport report, chapter D, sheet “D1.e” (“Breakdown by mode of the traction energy consumption of transport on the territory”)
The shift in passenger cars
Energy mix of passenger cars, in TWh consumed. Diesel falls by a third over the period, petrol rises again, and electricity, absent at the start of the series, becomes measurable.
View data
| Year | Electricity | Petrol | Diesel | LPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 0.02 TWh | 82.08 TWh | 214 TWh | 1.08 TWh |
| 2012 | 0.03 TWh | 77.07 TWh | 214.86 TWh | 0.98 TWh |
| 2013 | 0.04 TWh | 73.29 TWh | 211.02 TWh | 0.87 TWh |
| 2014 | 0.05 TWh | 71.58 TWh | 213.64 TWh | 0.78 TWh |
| 2015 | 0.07 TWh | 73.13 TWh | 214 TWh | 0.69 TWh |
| 2016 | 0.11 TWh | 73.3 TWh | 212.38 TWh | 0.62 TWh |
| 2017 | 0.15 TWh | 77.61 TWh | 211.13 TWh | 0.55 TWh |
| 2018 | 0.2 TWh | 81.21 TWh | 203.24 TWh | 0.48 TWh |
| 2019 | 0.28 TWh | 87.7 TWh | 199.4 TWh | 0.45 TWh |
| 2020 | 0.35 TWh | 72.47 TWh | 155.95 TWh | 0.3 TWh |
| 2021 | 0.74 TWh | 85.01 TWh | 164.72 TWh | 0.42 TWh |
| 2022 | 1.33 TWh | 98.49 TWh | 171.88 TWh | 0.71 TWh |
| 2023 | 1.97 TWh | 101.87 TWh | 160.83 TWh | 0.88 TWh |
| 2024 (p) | 2.82 TWh | 105.48 TWh | 153.05 TWh | 0.99 TWh |
Source: SDES - Annual transport report, chapter D, sheet “D1.e” (“Breakdown by mode of the traction energy consumption of transport on the territory”)
Transport energy consumption, mode by mode
Traction energy consumed on French territory, in TWh. Private transport and road freight together account for more than 90% of the total.
View data
| Year | Private transport | Road freight | Maritime | Air | Rail | Urban transport | Road passenger | Inland waterways | Pipelines | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 306 TWh | 181.6 TWh | 30.2 TWh | 8.8 TWh | 10 TWh | 4.5 TWh | 5.8 TWh | 1.2 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 549.3 TWh |
| 2012 | 301.8 TWh | 177.5 TWh | 28.5 TWh | 9.1 TWh | 9.9 TWh | 4.5 TWh | 5.5 TWh | 1.2 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 539.4 TWh |
| 2013 | 294.1 TWh | 173.2 TWh | 26 TWh | 8.9 TWh | 9.9 TWh | 4.6 TWh | 5.5 TWh | 1.2 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 524.8 TWh |
| 2014 | 294.9 TWh | 174 TWh | 22.2 TWh | 8.3 TWh | 9.6 TWh | 4.6 TWh | 5.5 TWh | 1.1 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 521.5 TWh |
| 2015 | 296.8 TWh | 176.4 TWh | 19.8 TWh | 8.3 TWh | 9.7 TWh | 4.7 TWh | 5.5 TWh | 1.1 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 523.5 TWh |
| 2016 | 295.4 TWh | 176.9 TWh | 18.8 TWh | 8.4 TWh | 9.3 TWh | 4.7 TWh | 5.5 TWh | 1 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 521.4 TWh |
| 2017 | 298.5 TWh | 182.4 TWh | 19.8 TWh | 8.6 TWh | 9.4 TWh | 4.7 TWh | 5.5 TWh | 0.9 TWh | 0.8 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 531.1 TWh |
| 2018 | 294.3 TWh | 183.5 TWh | 22.4 TWh | 8.6 TWh | 8.7 TWh | 4.9 TWh | 5.6 TWh | 0.9 TWh | 0.8 TWh | 0.5 TWh | 530.1 TWh |
| 2019 | 297 TWh | 185 TWh | 19.6 TWh | 8.7 TWh | 8.6 TWh | 5 TWh | 5.6 TWh | 1 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 531.8 TWh |
| 2020 | 237.5 TWh | 167.2 TWh | 11.1 TWh | 4.5 TWh | 6.9 TWh | 4.3 TWh | 4.1 TWh | 0.2 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 0.4 TWh | 436.8 TWh |
| 2021 | 259.5 TWh | 181.8 TWh | 12.2 TWh | 5.7 TWh | 7.9 TWh | 5.2 TWh | 4.7 TWh | 0.9 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 0.3 TWh | 478.8 TWh |
| 2022 | 281.5 TWh | 181.6 TWh | 13.3 TWh | 8.1 TWh | 8.4 TWh | 5.6 TWh | 5 TWh | 1.3 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 0.6 TWh | 506.1 TWh |
| 2023 | 274.5 TWh | 176.1 TWh | 13.3 TWh | 6.7 TWh | 8.1 TWh | 5.6 TWh | 4.9 TWh | 1.2 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.5 TWh | 491.5 TWh |
| 2024 (p) | 271.8 TWh | 174 TWh | 11.9 TWh | 7.7 TWh | 8.3 TWh | 5.7 TWh | 4.8 TWh | 1.2 TWh | 0.7 TWh | 0.5 TWh | 486.5 TWh |
Source: SDES - Annual transport report, chapter D, sheet “D1.e” (“Breakdown by mode of the traction energy consumption of transport on the territory”)
Method and caveats
Final traction energy, excluding network losses and excluding upstream production; this is not primary energy. Maritime and air transport are counted as bunker deliveries in France.
Electric items are not inferred from the labels: they are marked in the expected structure (rail, urban transport, passenger cars, pipelines). The share is related to the published “Ensemble” total.
Sequential reading of the table: row labels are not unique (“Diesel”, “Petrol” and “Electricity” appear under several modes), so the expected structure is described row by row in the build and any divergence makes it fail, rather than matching on a prefix.
An inconsistency in the source, kept as published
- “Gaz naturel véhicules (utilitaires français)” and “Gaz naturel véhicules” carry identical values across the whole series (2.062 TWh in 2,024): the SDES workbook publishes the same NGV figure under two modes. Kept as published, flagged on this page.
Licence: Open Licence / Etalab 2.0.
Real data, updated with each annual edition of the Bilan annuel des transports. Chapter D is shared with the transport-voyageurs module (GHG emissions): a single download feeds both.