BERLIN (Reuters) It won’t be easy to run a national railway on renewable energy like wind, hydro and solar power but that is what Germany’s Deutsche Bahn aims to do for one simple reason: it’s what consumers want.

Deutsche Bahn says it wants to raise the percentage of wind, hydro and solar energy to power its trains from 20 percent now to 28 percent in 2014 and become carbon free by 2050.

"Consumers in Germany have made it clear they want us all to get away from nuclear energy and to more renewable energy," Hans Juergen Witschke, chief executive of Deutsche Bahn Energie, said of the railway’s attention grabbing revised targets that exceed the government’s aOlernKienOP
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"It’s what customers want and we’re making it happen," Witschke said in an interview with Reuters. "The demand for green electricity keeps rising each year and that’ll continue."

Prevailing attitudes in Germany were already decidedly green
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The Berlin government abruptly reversed course
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That caught Deutsche Bahn and German industry off guard. The state owned railways had relied heavily on nuclear energy. But now the public and industry are increasingly attuned to sustainability and what companies are doing, Witschke said.

"Environmental protection has become an important issue in the market place and especially in the transport sector," he said. "It’s a mega trend. Even though more renewables will cost a bit more, that can be contained with an intelligent energy mix and reasonable time frame. We’re confident that cutting CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions will give aOlernKienOP
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The railway’s new push for a larger share of renewable energy to operate trains that transport 1.9 billion passengers and 415 million tonnes of freight each year has won applause from environmental groups.

They have cheered Deutsche Bahn’s partnerships with wind and hydroelectric power suppliers and its exploratory moves into harvesting solar power from
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Photovoltaic panels in the spectacular glass roof of Berlin’s main station produce 160,000 kw/h of electricity a year meeting about 2 percent of the Hauptbahnhof station’s needs.

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Peter Ahmels, a renewable energy specialist at the German Environmental Aid Association (DUH), said the railways could have done more with wind and solar on its property holdings.

Instead, he said Deutsche Bahn had relied complacently on its image as a low emission mode of transport.

It could do this because even high speed trains have CO2 emissions per passenger per km of 46 grams, compared with an average 140 for cars and 180 for planes.

"Since Fukushima, Deutsche Bahn has been moving in the right direction," Ahmels said. "There’s clearly a new thinking on the board. They’re doing sensible things. Before they resisted. The argument was that renewables were not their core business."The railway’s high speed trains zip across the country at up to 300 kph (186 mph). By 2014 a third of the electricity for long distance trains will come from renewable sources.

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To run its trains the railways use a staggering amount of electricity every year: 12 terawatt hours. That is as much as Berlin with its 3.2 million residents consumes.

The railways alone use 2 percent of Germany’s total electricity. A single high speed ICE train traveling from Frankfurt to Berlin uses up 4,800 kw/h, enough for a four person family for a full year.

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"We’ve got a vision of being carbon free by 2050. That’s not just a declaration of intent. It’s a concrete business target."

Some passengers and business partners, such as carmaker Audi , already voluntarily pay small surcharges for CO2 free transport packages that guarantee green power is used.