(Priyanka Gupta, Intern Journalist); Indian Railways’ mission of becoming a “Green Railway” by 2030 means ‘net-zero carbon emission’ has taken a new speed by major initiatives towards mitigation of global warming and combating climate change. Some of its strategies include Railway electrification, improving the energy efficiency of locomotives & trains and fixed installations, green certification for installations/stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy.
More than 40,000 Route km (RKM) (63%of BG routes) of electrification has been completed by Indian Railways in which major part of work has been done during 2014-20. 7000 RKM of electrification is the fixed target of Indian Railways for the year 2020-21. By December 2023, it has planned to electrify all the routes on the BG network. Indian Railway’s main focus is on last-mile connectivity and missing links due to which 365 km major connectivity work has commissioned during the COVID period.
Major connectivity commissioned during the COVID period like Katni-Satna section (99 RKM) of Mumbai-Howrah via the Allahabad route has been commissioned providing an alternate route to Howrah. Likewise, Pachore-Maksi (88 RKM) section on the Indore-Guna-Bina route has also been commissioned providing an alternate route to Maksi-Bhopal-Bina. On Howrah/Sealdah-SVD Katra via Patna route, Bhagalpur-Shivnarayanpur (45 RKM) section has been commissioned. On the route connecting Karaikal port to coal, fertilizer, and steel plants of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the Thiruvarur-Karaikal port (46 RKM) section has been commissioned providing port connectivity to Erode, Coimbatore and Palghat.
Numerous initiatives have been taken to promote solar energy. Through the help of roof-top solar panels (Developer model), Indian Railways is working to harness the potential of 500 Mega Watt (MW) energy. 100 Mega Watt (MW) of solar plants on roof-tops of various buildings including 900 stations have been commissioned to date. Other solar plants are under different stages of execution with a combined capacity of 400 MW. The target for completion of these plants is 2022 and tender for 245 MW of solar plants are already awarded.
Besides this, land-based solar installations is another way to produce power for running trains on which Indian Railways is working. Indian Railways has the potential of installing 20 GW of land-based solar plants on 51,000 hectares of land. The generated Solar Power will be fed to central; State Grid or directly to 25 KV AC traction system. Railway Energy Management Company Limited (REMCL) has been directed towards the escalation of taking up land-based projects.
In collaboration with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), one project of 1.7 MW at Bina(Madhya Pradesh) has already been installed and is presently under extensive testing. This is the First of its kind of solar project in the world.
3 GW Solar Project has been taken up by Indian Railway in three phases:
Phase 1: On 29th April 2020, the tender has been floated for 1.6 GW capacities in railway plots for open access states.
Phase 2: On 16th June 2020, the tender has been floated for 400 MW capacities in railway plots which will be developed for non-open access states under ownership mode of REMCL (captive use).
Phase 3: On 1st July 2020, the tender has been floated for 1 GW capacity in railway plots along three tracks under the developer model which will be installed for open access states.
In the wind energy sector, 103 MW wind-based power plants have already been commissioned. Among them, 26 MW is in Rajasthan (Jaisalmer), 21 MW is in Tamil Nadu and 56.4 MW is in Maharashtra ( Sangli). Indian Railways has also planned to set up 200 MW wind energy plants in the next 2 years in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Karnataka.
Other Green Initiatives like 100 percent LED illumination of buildings and stations have been started by Indian Railways, realizing its role in climate change. Indian Railways has also acquired Green Certification from CIII to 7 Production Units (PUs), 39 Workshops, 6 Diesel sheds, and 1 Stores depot. 14 Railway Stations have also been Green certified. Other than these 21 other buildings/campuses have also been Green certified. Other than this 215 stations have been certified with Environment Management System (EMS)/ISO 14001.
A total of 505 pairs of trains has been converted to Head On Generation(HOG), unleashing approx 70 million liter diesel/Rs 450 crore per annum potential of saving. Energy Efficiency Studies of all 8 Production Units and 12 workshops have been completed under MOU with CII resulting in a 15% improvement in energy efficiency.
In the field of Green Initiatives, a total of 69,000 coaches have been fitted with more than 2,44,000 bio-toilets in Indian Railways.
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