Solar power to the 7,000 railway stations
Mother Nature Aug / Sep 2017
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The Indian Prime Minster wants to boost his country’ s solar capacity to 100,000 megawatts in the next six years. Still, more than 300 million Indians still aren’ t on the power grid
The lack of an electricity infrastructure is a hurdle to rural India ' s development. India ' s power grid is under-developed, with large groups of people still living off the grid. In 2004, about 80,000 of the nation ' s villages still did not have electricity; of them, 18,000 could not be electrified by extending the conventional grid. A target of electrifying 5,000 such villages was set for the 2002 – 2007 Five-Year Plan. By 2004 more than 2,700 villages and hamlets were electrified, primarily with solar photovoltaic systems. The development of inexpensive solar technology is considered a potential alternative, providing an electricity infrastructure consisting
In early February, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a plan to apply the use of solar power to the 7,000 railway stations located across the country. The plan will be implemented as a part of the country’ s federal budget for the up coming fiscal year. Solar power in India is now the main focus of industry and infrastructure in the country. of a network of local-grid clusters with distributed electricity generation. It could bypass( or relieve) expensive, longdistance, centralized power-delivery systems, bringing inexpensive electricity to large groups of people. In Rajasthan during FY2016-17, 91 villages have been electrified with a solar standalone system and over 6,200 households have received
Solar power to the 7,000 railway stations
Indian Railways launched first solar-powered DEMU( diesel electrical multiple unit) train from the Safdarjung railway station in Delhi. The train will run from Sarai Rohilla in Delhi to Farukh Nagar in Haryana. A total of 16 solar panels, each producing 300 Wp, are fitted in six coaches.
The cost of these solar panels, manufactured under ' Make in India ' initiative, is Rs 54 lakh. This is the first time in the world that solar panels are being used as grid in railways. 300 stations across the country had begun to use solar
a 100W solar home-lighting system. Ranked the top Asian market for solar off-grid products.
In August 2016, the forecast for solar photovoltaic installations was about 4.8 GW for the calendar year. About 2.8 GW was installed in the first eight months of 2016, more than all 2015 solar installations.
India ' s solar projects stood at about 21 GW, with about 14 GW under construction and about 7 GW to be auctioned. The country ' s solar capacity is expected to reach 18.7 GW by the end of 2017( 89 percent higher than 2016), making it the third-largest global solar market.
By 2012, a total of 4,600,000 solar lanterns and 861,654 solar-powered home lights were installed. Typically replacing kerosene lamps, they can be purchased for the cost of a few months ' worth of kerosene with a small loan. India has sold or distributed about 1.2 million solar home-lighting systems and 3.2 million solar lanterns, and has been ranked the top Asian market for solar off-grid products.
energy. Indian Railways, the state-run organization that operates India’ s trains, has been working for several years to set up a successful solar energy program. In 2016, the United Nations Development Program( UNDP) partnered with Indian Railways to generate five gigawatts of solar power capacity into the system. To put this into perspective, global solar installations