Due to excellent upkeep, very close monitoring of operations of solar power plants & numerous innovative steps taken under Solar Mission 2021-22, the productivity of Solar plants in North Central Railway is registering an upward trajectory. While NCR generated more than 1 crore units of solar energy last financial year, in the first three months of this financial year 37 lac units has already been generated using solar power.
- Not only, it’s a big leap towards a larger goal of environment protection as solar energy is a greener source of energy, it has led to substantial savings in revenue too as one unit of solar energy costs around Rs 5 as against Rs. 7.7 per unit cost of conventional energy.
- Due to sincere efforts & hard work put in by the team of staff engaged in maintenance, 15 solar plants of Prayagraj Division, 9 solar plants of Jhansi Division and 10 plants of Agra Division has now been placed under “A Category”, i.e. High Performing Solar Plant.
- Plants whose Capacity Utilization factor (CUF) is more than 14% are placed in Category A.
- Efforts are on to bring more plants under this category.
- NCR has a total installed capacity of 11.03 MWp.
- While 120 kWp has been installed by the Railway, remaining 10882.34 kWp capacity has been installed by two major Solar Power Developers (SPD) Azure and ReNew on a PPP basis.
- Among the major places where rooftop solar plants have been installed are station buildings, workshops, training schools, GM office and DRM office buildings.
- NCR has set an ambitious target for 2021-22 to generate highestever solar energy to the tune of 1.3 Crore units, thereby saving about Rs 5 Crores, i.e. Rs 1 Crore more than the last year, under the aforesaid ‘Solar Mission – NCR’.
- GM NCR Shri V.K. Tripathi has called for adopting a focussed approach for augmenting the share of solar energy in its total non-traction electrical energy consumption.
- Principal Chief Electrical Engineer NCR Shri Satish Kothari, who is at the helm of affairs to promote solar energy informs that utmost importance is being given to maintenance of solar plants. Some of the steps taken are:
- Monitoring of Solar Energy generation is being done for each plant, inverter wise.
- Daily monitoring, instead of monthly, of Energy & CUF% of plants is being done.
- Defective/Decommissioned plants due to roof repairs, inverters, cables, etc have been put right.
- Focused attention for quality cleaning of solar panels
- Tree trimming in shadow affected zones.
- 25 points Solar Mission ready reckoner in pictorial form issued for education & sensitization of maintenance staff.
- Technical & practical useful educational videos on 25 topics in HINDI have been issued to field supervisors for enhancing their knowledge.
- Solar Diary introduced to SSEs for systematic documentation & focussed monitoring of energy & other important data in a structured manner.
Future plan:
- Work of installation of Solar Power Plants of 1.86 MWp on rooftop.
- 46.25 MWp on vacant lands near Railway stations (around 185 acres acres).
- 249 MWp on vacant lands along the railway tracks (around 1320 acres) falling under Golden Diagonal & Golden Quadrilateral (GD & GQ) over NCR by Railway Energy Management Company Limited (REMCL) has already been planned.
- Solar energy being a non polluting, environment friendly and cost effective source of energy, all efforts are there to augment it and to provide best possible maintenance to existing solar plants.
Source: North Central Railway-Press Release | Image Credit: MoR
