Indian Railways set to meet all its energy consumption needs by 2030

Maligaon, August 30 (MExN): In order to achieve its objective of becoming 100% self-sustainable for all its power needs and also to contribute to national solar power goals, Indian Railways organized wide-ranging discussions with key stakeholders under the chairmanship of Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal.

Indian Railways is committed to utilize solar energy for meeting its traction power requirement and become a complete ‘Green mode of transportation,’ according to a release from the Northeast Frontier Railway’s Chief Public Relations Officer.

The release stated that Guwahati station became the first railway station in the Northeast to be fully powered with grid-connected solar power with commissioning of a 700 KWp solar plant in the year 2017. Already, roof-mounted solar panels in various offices, station buildings; level crossing gates in the NFR area are generating about 2718 KWp of Solar Power which enabled savings of more than Rs 2.22 crore from annual conventional energy bills, the release stated.

By the end of the current financial year, NFR will be generating an additional 3000 KWp of solar power and many other projects are on hand to augment the solar power generation capacity, it said while adding that once completed, it will generate clean and green electricity with savings of about Rs 4.73 crore from annual conventional energy bills.

According to the release, the primary areas of discussion in the meeting included finding innovative solutions for setting up solar projects along the railway track, possible power procurement routes for achieving 20 GW renewable energy target to become the net zero carbon emitter by 2030 and challenges in large scale deployment of solar energy projects by the Indian Railways.

During discussion the developers acknowledged the efforts of Indian Railways in leading the development of renewable energy in the country and expressed strong support to the national transporter’s net zero carbon emissions target by 2030.

It will also contribute towards National Solar Mission, an initiative of the Government of India to promote solar power.

Indian Railways has developed a mega plan for installing solar plants of 20 GW capacity by utilizing its vacant land by 2030. With the ambitious plan of achieving 100% electrification for Railways by the year 2023, Indian Railways energy consumption is set to become more than 33 billion units by 2030 from its current annual requirement of about 21 billion units, it said.

Indian Railways has adopted a multi-pronged approach towards decarbonization which would be fulfilled by the solar projects being deployed, making it the first transport organization to be energy self-sufficient. This would help in making Indian Railways green as well as ‘Atma-Nirbhar,’ according to the statement.