Planned: 1,200-MW of renewable energy
Indian Railways, which uses approximately 56 Million Units of Electrical Energy per day, is taking the following steps for giving a thrust for use of environment-friendly technologies, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 28 June 2019.
The details:
Railway Electrification of tracks – IR has decided to electrify 100% of its Broad Gauge Rail routes in mission mode; as a green mode of transport.
Use of renewable energy – IR has planned to source about 1,000 Mega Watt (MW) Solar Power and 200 MW of Wind Power.
Various Energy efficiency measures taken to reduce carbon footprints, which include the following:
Use of energy efficient 3-Phase technology with regenerative features for electric locomotives, Mainline Electrical Multiple Units (MEMUs), Electrical Multiple Units (EMU), train sets for better energy efficiency.
Introduction of Head On Generation (HOG) system in trains to reduce diesel fuel consumption in power cars.
Provision of energy efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting in all Railway installations including Railway stations, service buildings, Residential quarters & coaches for reduction in electricity consumption.
Regular energy audits at consumption points – Energy Efficiency studies of six Production Units (PUs) and four workshops were conducted and up to 15% energy efficiency improvement achieved. This included activities like identification of significant energy saving opportunities, one day training program, identification of potential technology suppliers who can offer energy saving technologies to the units etc.
Emphasis on use of 5 Star rated electrical equipment.
Regular training of Loco pilots for use of coasting, regenerative braking features and switching off blowers of electric locos in case yard detention is more than 50 minutes.
Similarly, diesel locos are also shut down if expected detention is more than 30 minutes and thereby resulting in reduction of Green House Gases (GHG) emissions.
Trailing locomotive of multi units (MU) hauling empty freight trains are switched off to save energy.
Energy consumption on electric locomotives is regularly monitored through microprocessor-based energy meters provided in all the electric locomotives and benchmarking is done based on average energy consumption.
Monitoring the fuel consumption with respect to trip ration of diesel locomotive drivers.
Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) has been provided in 986 diesel locomotives to reduce fuel consumption when locomotive is idle.
Monitoring of idling of diesel locomotives is being done through remote monitoring and management of Locomotives and trains (called as REMMLOT). 2606 locomotives at present are equipped with REMMLOT.
Use of 5% biodiesel in traction fuel- Blending of biodiesel with HSD, to the extent of 5%, to save HSD.
20% Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) substitution in DEMUs-CNG usage emits less GHG than liquid fuels.
Indian Railways have the distinction of being the only railway in the world to be using CNG run power cars for passenger transportation.
IR has also started conversion of DEMU Driving Power Car (DPC) into dual fuel mode DEMU/DPC with CNG. 25 number of DPCs have been converted and are under operation. fiinews.com
