India Launches First Solar Plants With Capacity of 5MW

Indian Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal launched the first set of solar plants with a total capacity of 5 megawatt (MW) here on Friday, officials said. “Piyush Goyal today dedicated the solar power plant of 5MW to the nation. This is the first largest plant commissioned by Indian railway on the roof top of Hazrat Nizamuddin, New Delhi, Anand Vihar and Delhi railway stations,” a government spokesperson said.

The project is part of the Indian government’s national solar mission in which Indian railways plans to commission 1,000 MW solar plants across its network.

Goyal also inaugurated the international conference on green initiatives and railway electrification. “Indian railways have set a massive target of 100 per cent electrification, meeting this huge target is a challenge. This conference will provide an insight into how we may achieve this target. Also, green initiatives and adopting viable sources of energy over Indian railways has been our priority in the past three years,” Mr Goyal said.

In July this year, to cut down the use of diesel, Indian railways inducted its first solar-panelled train in an effort to run the country’s vast rail network on clean energy. With the induction of solar powered trains, India joined the club of the select-few countries to run trains on alternative fuel.

The Indian government in 2015 announced an investment of over 137 billion US dollars (FJ$274 billion) over a period of the next five years to boost railways and modernize new lines.

The Indian sprawling railways is the world’s third largest network, ferrying around 23 million people each day.