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 has solarised more than 960 stations till date. Orders have been placed for 198 MW solar rooftop capacity for 550 stations which are under execution. Indian Railways had recently organised a meet of leading solar power developers who had shared their expectations of being partners in the journey of Indian Railways to become “net zero carbon emitter” before 2030. Indian Railways is set to produce solar energy for meeting all its energy consumption needs of more than 33 billion units by 2030. Current annual requirement is about 20 billion units.
Indian Railways has a mega plan for installing solar plants of 20 GW capacity by utilizing its vacant land by 2030. Some of the Stations solarised are Varanasi, New Delhi, Old Delhi, Jaipur, Secunderabad, Kolkata, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Howrah etc.
About 51,000-hectare vacant land available with Indian Railways and is now ready to extend all support to the developers for installing solar power plants on Railway’s vacant un-encroached land. It may be noted that Railways is also set to achieve 100% electrification by the year 2023.
They are committed to utilize solar energy for meeting its traction power requirement and become a complete ‘Green mode of transportation’. This is in line with the recent directive of Prime Minister to solarise railway stations and utilize vacant railway land for Renewable Energy (RE) projects.
In this regard, to begin with, bids for 3 GW solar projects on vacant Railway land parcels and land parcels along the railway track have already been invited by Railway Energy Management Company Ltd. (REMCL). These solar projects, besides supplying power to Railways at reduced tariff, will also protect the Railway land by construction of boundary wall along the track.
