South Western Railway (SWR) has installed solar panels on the roof of its stations, terraces of its buildings and at level-crossing gates across Karnataka to harness renewable energy for its power needs. South- Western Railways is one of the 18 railway zones in India. It has nearly 3,566 kilometres (2,216 mi) of broad guage route. It zonal headquarters are located at Hubli, about 400Km northwest of Bengaluru in the southern state.
“Solar panels are installed on the roof top of 128 major stations across the zone, including Hubli, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hospet, Gadag and Ballari, on the terraces of 7 buildings at Hubli, Bengaluru and Mysuru,” said a statement.
Nearly 221 level crossing gates across the zone have PV cell lights installed. In sunny days, solar panels may generate around 4.7 million units of power. They have provided 4.37-megawatt peak (MWp) plants on developer mode and 165 kilowatt peak KWp) solar plant across the zone. Using solar energy will enable South Western Railways to save Rs 1.88 crore in electricity bills this fiscal (2020-21) year.
Moreover, SWR aims to increase its solar capacities with zonal railway planning to set up solar plants at track side and railway vacant lands.
REMCL has also floated a tender for land-based solar plants of 20MWp in vacant lands and 8.3MWp solar plants on track sides across the zone . The land has also been identified for installing plants to generate 98MWp from solar energy. The railways plan to source 1,000MW of solar power and 200MW of wind power by 2021-22 across the country.
