Indian Railways Solar Power Plans: A Brief Look

February 3, 2020, 9:23 AM

Solar Power on Vacant Railway Land for meeting Energy Requirement

Indian Railway’s plans to utilize its unused vacant Land parcels for setting up of Land Based Solar Plants for its traction power requirement as ‘Green mode of transportation’, thereby contributing towards its share in reduction of ‘Green House Gases’ emission.

This will in line with commitment made by Hon’ble Prime Minister in the International Paris Agreement on Climate change, 2015, where India has pledged a reduction of 33-35% in emission intensity by 2030 from 2005 level.

It will also contribute towards National Solamission, an initiative of the Government of India to promote solar power.
It will also fulfill in meeting Renewable Purchase Obligations of Indian Railways as a Deemed Licensee.

As a part of this, Indian Railways has planned to set up 1000 MW solar power plant and about 200 MW of wind power plants by 2021-22 across Zonal Railways & Production Units. IR has till date, installed 100.99 MW Solar & 103.4 MW Wind power across Railway installations.

Indian Railways primarily uses electricity and diesel for its traction applications. In 2018-19, Indian Railways consumed about 18 billion units of electricity (comprising around 1.27% of the country’s total power consumption) and 3069.30 tonne kilo litres of diesel (in 2018-19) for its traction need. With 100% electrification and rail traffic projected to grow, it is estimated that IR will be consuming around 28-30 BUs for its traction requirement. The requirement is expected to increase further with commissioning of DFC routes & decongestion of IR routes.

With ambitious plan of Hon’ble Prime Minister to install 175 GW of Solar by 2022-23, and to reduce fuel burden of IR, it has been endeavoured to install land based solar plants across IR. The plants will be set up on unused vacant land. There is about 51,000 hectare of Railway land available. Out of which, it is estimated that available feasible vacant land has a potential of 10 GW for installing land based solar plants.

The Solar power so generated will be fed to CTU/STU Grid or directly to 25 kV AC traction system. A proof of concept of feeding solar power directly to 25 kV AC traction system of 5 kVA capacity is already demonstrated. Further, to scale up 2 pilot projects of 2 MW at Diwana (Haryana) & 1.7 MW at Bina (M.P.) are already under different stages of execution & likely to be commissioned by March’2020.

In addition to above, Indian Railways is also setting up a 50 MW Land Solar power plant at Bhilai, Chhattisgarh which is likely to be commissioned by Jan’2021. Indian Railways has also tied up 400 MW Solar power for its traction energy need through Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Limited (RUMSL), a JV of Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikash Nigam Limited (MPUVNL) and Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). Tender for this is likely to be opened in month of June’ 2020. Indian Railway is also installing Rooftop Solar plants at various railway installations for which solar plants works of 245 MW are under different stages of execution.

For meeting its traction requirement of 30 Billion Units, it is initially planned to utilize vacant unused Railways land for installing solar plants of 2 GW. Initial survey of about 4500 Acre land is already carried out and is under different stage of processing. This land is capable of installing 1 GW of solar plants. Survey for another 4400 Acre of land is currently under way which will install another 1 GW of solar plants on Railway land.

The land based solar plants so setup will be executed under sum total of various models like RESCO, CPSU scheme etc based on Indian Railways need, State regulations, Open Access status of Indian Railways in different States, etc. Full utilization of 10 GW of solar energy will only be feasible if wheeling and banking arrangement is provided by various States, providing Open Access to Indian Railways by balance States and relaxation in RPO obligations.

Source – Railpost

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