The Indian Railways has set a target of going completely green by becoming a net zero carbon emitter by 2030 through various initiatives, including electrification of broad gauge, improving energy efficiency and switching to renewable sources.

It has also set a target of electrification of all routes on broad gauge by December 2023.

“Railway electrification, improving energy efficiency of locomotives and trains and fixed installations, green certification for installations/stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy are parts of its strategy of achieving net zero carbon emission,” the ministry said. 

How will railways achieve the target?

Electrification of routes:

All routes on the broad gauge network have been planned to be electrified by December 2023. 

Indian Railways has completed electrification of more than 40,000 Route km (RKM) (63 per cent of BG routes) in which 18,605 km electrification work has been done during 2014-20. 

Indian Railways has fixed a target of electrification of 7000 RKM for the year 2020-21. It is focusing on electrification of last mile connectivity and  missing links. With this in mind 365 km major connectivity work has been commissioned during COVID period.

Solar and wind energy:

Indian Railways is working to harness the potential of 500 Mega Watt (MW) energy through rooftop solar panels, 100 MW solar plants already commissioned on roof-tops of various buildings including 900 stations, 400 MW is under various stages of execution.

Also, Railways is trying to produce power from land based solar installations for running trains. It already has 51,000 hectare of land potential of installing 20 GW land based solar plants. The solar power generated will be fed to central/state grid or directly to 25 kV AC traction system.

Railway Energy Management Company Limited (REMCL), a joint venture company of Indian Railways (49 per cent equity) and RITES Limited (51 per cent equity), has been mandated for the proliferation of taking up land-based projects.

One project of 1.7 MW at Bina (Madhya Pradesh) in collaboration with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has already been installed and is presently under extensive testing. This is the first of its kind of solar project in the world.

In the wind energy sector, 103 MW wind-based power plants have already been commissioned, and has plans to set up 200 MW wind energy plants in next 2 years in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka. 

Other measures:

* 100 per cent LED illumination of buildings and stations.

* Total 505 pairs of trains have been converted to Head on Generation (HOG), unleashing approx 70-million-litre diesel/ Rs 450 crore per annum potential of savings.

* A total of 69,000 coaches have been fitted with 2,44,000 bio-toilets.

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