ER looks to ramp up solar power utilisation under eco-drive

Kolkata: Eastern Railway has set up a plan titled 'Mission 300 Million Watts (30 MW) Rooftop Solar Power Plants by 2020' as a part of its environment-friendly drive.

Under the scheme, utilisation of power from solar energy will be increased from 30 million watts to 300 million watts from 2018 to 2020 using rooftop solar plants, in the stride towards harnessing green, clean and renewable energy.

Senior railway personnel said that the scheme would generate alternative source of renewable energy amounting to 15% of the total energy consumption on non-traction areas, which is 30 million units out of a total of 180 million units.

At present, 55 million watts (5.5 MW) rooftop solar power plants have been commissioned by Eastern Railway. Now, the process is on to commission additional 245 million watt solar plants at different places in areas under the jurisdiction of Eastern Railway by 2020.

It has been found that after achieving the target there will be a saving of Rs 12 crore per annum at the present rate of the tariff and nearly Rs 400 to Rs 450 crore saving in non-traction energy bills in the next 25 years.

It may be mentioned that ER has already commissioned a 2,965 KW grid connected rooftop solar project at Howrah. This is the largest capacity project commissioned over a single station under Indian Railway.

Solar panels have also been commissioned at Kolkata, Naihati, Asansol Malda and many other places under ER.