The achievements have now attracted a US body—US Agency for International Development (USAID)— that has expressed its interest in studying the initiatives taken by the NCR for harnessing solar power.
North Central Railways (NCR) has bagged the first position among all the zonal railways of the country in harnessing solar energy and thereby reducing carbon emissions. The achievements have now attracted a US body—US Agency for International Development (USAID)— that has expressed its interest in studying the initiatives taken by the NCR for harnessing solar power, inform NCR officials.
Chief public relations officer (CPRO) of NCR Shivam Sharma said that USAID-South Asia Regional Energy Partnership (SAREP) will jointly undertake research on rooftop solar power plants of NCR as well as study innovation planning, monitoring, and maintenance aspects related to the plants.
“For this, Dipankar Bishnoi, capacity building specialist of USAID-SAREP has sent a letter to the principal chief electrical engineer of NCR. After the study, rapid steps will be taken in the direction of harnessing solar energy using this research in all zones of the Indian Railways and also abroad,” said Sharma.
The US agency will also submit its study report to the Railway Board, he added.
Solar panels installed by NCR on rooftops of its different buildings have resulted in significant savings in revenue for NCR every month. Solar energy generation innovations by NCR have also earned respect far and wide as by attaining a capacity utilization factor (CUF) of 12.9% NCR has bagged the top slot in productivity of solar plants among all zonal railways in 2021-22. This momentum continues this year too as NCR attained a CUF of 15.9% in the first quarter of this year, again the highest among all 17 zones of the country, Sharma shared.
Capacity utilization factor (CUF) means the ratio of the actual output from a solar plant over the year (kWh) to the maximum possible output from it for a year (kWh) under ideal conditions.
For this proposed study, a team of this US agency would be visiting different locations of NCR and would prepare their findings as to how NCR is developing solar energy on a large scale, the CPRO said.
It is worth mentioning that after the Paris climate agreement in December 2015, the entire world is trying to become a zero carbon emitter by 2050. In such a situation, the increasing temperature due to climate change can also be controlled by reducing carbon emissions and the efforts of NCR in terms of harnessing solar energy is a small yet effective step, said the CPRO.
In 2021-22, the total solar energy production at NCR was 124 lakh units which resulted in a savings of ₹5.01 crore and CO2 emission reductions of 10,500 Metric tonnes. As compared to this, in 2022-23 (from April to June), the production has been 38.4 lakh units and NCR saved ₹1.56 crore which was 3200 MT of carbon footprints reduction.
Source: PTI
