Indian Railways Bid to Partly Shift to Solar Energy to Save Fuel Cost and Reduce Carbon Emission
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 1: In a bid to save on the fuel cost and carbon emission, the Indian Railways at the directive of the railway minister Piyush Goyal is learnt to have identified over 51,000 hectares of unused vacant land owned by the railways for setting up solar plants to run the national transporter.
According to one estimate, the Indian Railways can offset around seven million tonnes of carbon every year if it harnesses the energy from the sun and save over Rs 17,000 crores in the fuel cost annually if it can run only one in four trains on the national network powered by solar energy.
The latest findings lend credence to Goyal’s ambitious target of turning the Indian Railways into the world’s first net-zero carbon emitter by 2030. AS per his instructions to identify huge areas of unproductive land for setting up solar power plants to generate electricity for the national transporter, about 51,000 hectares of unused railway land has already been identified and plans ready to generate 20GW for captive utilization by the railways.
For the solar power generation, the Indian Railways and the Railway Ministry have formed a joint venture — Railway Energy Management Company — to support the development of solar photovoltaics and wind energy projects to supply the railway’s energy needs.
During his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on India’s 75th Independence Day this year, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had highlighted the country’s plan to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2050 and pointed out that work was underway for 100% electrification of Indian Railways.
If the Indian Railways can achieve this target, it would lead to an annual emissions reduction of at least 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which could help meet 5% of India’s targeted nationally determined contributions (NDC) to mitigate the effects of climate change. On the other hand, it would also help India achieve the target of reaching renewable energy sources to 450 GW by 2030.
The analysis, part of a joint study by Delhi-based Climate Trends and the UK-based green-tech start-up Riding Sunbeams, highlights that around a quarter of the 20GW solar capacity —up to 5,272 MW — could be fed directly into the overhead power lines of the railways instead of being procured over the electricity networks, reducing transmission and distribution losses and saving money.
“India is leading the world on two vital climate frontiers, including electrification of the railway network and solar power deployment. Connecting two of these keystone low-carbon technologies in Indian Railways can drive both India’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and its efforts to transition off fossil fuels to tackle the climate crisis,” Leo Murray, the founder of Riding Sunbeams said.
The researchers found that substituting energy supplied from the coal-dominated grid for private-wire supply from solar could also rapidly cut emissions by as much as a 6.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
The Indian railways has announced that it intended to achieve cent per cent electrification of the entire railway network by 2023 to reduce pollution and reaching net-zero carbon emission by 2030. “Head-On-Generation systems, bio-toilets, and LED lights recreate the train itself into a travel mode that’s kinder to the environment while maintaining comparable passenger comfort,” the officials of the world’s second-largest railway network said in a statement on June 5.
As per the Paris Agreement on climate change, India has pledged to reduce the intensity of emissions by 33-35% by 2030 from 2005-levels. One of the ways India can achieve its goal of shifting to non-fossil-fuel-based energy for 40% of its cumulative electricity generation capacity by 2030 is by transitioning the Indian Railways into a green transport medium.
Indian Railways is the single largest consumer of electricity in India and is heavily dependent on coal-based power generation. The railways consume 20 TWh of electricity per year, which is roughly 2% of the country’s total power generation. In 2019-20, the locomotives in the national network consumed 23,79,865 kilolitres of diesel and around 1,000 tonnes of coal to run.
Converting all current diesel traction to electric modes would initially cause a 32% increase in emissions due to India’s reliance on coal to produce electricity. The emissions intensity of the Indian electricity grid is 825 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e)/ GWh, over three times higher than the emissions intensity from the UK. To mitigate this, the Indian Railways would need either to procure its supply of clean electricity from solar and wind generators connected directly into the rail network, or develop new grid-connected renewable projects to match the traction energy supplied via the electricity grid.
“There has been analysis that converting all diesel locomotives to electric will indeed increase the emissions in the short term, however, this report shows the tremendous opportunity of doing it right the first time, by creating a direct connection of the locomotive system to solar PV installations, meeting more than a quarter of the total demand,” Aarti Khosla, the director at Climate Trends, who co-authored the study, said.
As per the Niti Aayog data, the Indian Railway contributed to around 6.84 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission in 2014.
The researchers, however, warned that achieving the target of 100% electrification in all routes by 2023 could be accompanied by an increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the short term because of India’s current reliance on coal to produce electricity. Currently India’s 76 per cent of the electricity generation is based on coal and the Railways achieving 100 per cent electrification would automatically add to coal consumption for power generation. But the net-zero carbon emission target would mean the Railways, the single largest electricity consumer, would be pushing the power sector to provide renewable energy instead of coal-based electricity.
