Continuing its efforts to solarize the railway lines of the country, the government has now announced that it has installed solar panels on various trains for their electricity requirements.

The Indian Railways is the… single largest consumer of electricity with roughly 2 percent share of national energy consumption.

Indian Railways has installed flexible solar panels on 11 coaches of Sitapur-Rewari passenger in July 2018 to augment the battery charging. Apart from this, it also installed solar panels on 10 exhibition coaches of Swachhata Express in March 2018.

Till now six trailer coaches of Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) were retrofitted with solar panels & fifty guard vans have also been fitted with solar panel during 2017-18.

“Solar panel in guard van produces 1.2 KWh of electricity per clear day. There are further sanctions available for provision of solar panels on 530 trailing cars of DEMUs and in 750 guard brake vans and the work of retro-fitment of solar panels in coaches will be done in different workshops and DEMU sheds of Indian Railways,” he added.

Solar panels at rooftops of 78 railway stations across Kerala have been planned based on feasibility at the stations.

Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal recently announced that Indian Railways is going green in a big way and plans to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2030. Goyal emphasised that the action plan to achieve 100 percent of clean power for Indian Railways is in progress and can be achieved with collective efforts toward a common goal.