Railways plans to set up 20 GW RE capacity on surplus land: Piyush Goyal

• Goyal added that the Railways is going to be a 100 percent electricity-driven rail network in the coming years

• He also said that the Railways will have to either expand battery storage or other forms of storage for this

New Delhi: Union Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal has said that the Indian Railways plans to use the surplus land available with it for generating 20 GW of renewable energy (RE) from 'Made-in-India' solar or wind equipment to power its network. Goyal added that the Railways is going to be a 100 percent electricity-driven rail network in the coming years, which would make it the largest such network in the world. The minister was addressing CEEW India's programme on 'Powering Livelihoods: Transforming India's Rural Economy with Clean Energy Solutions.'

Also read: REMCL bags its biggest project, to set up 3 GW solar plants on railway land

"We plan to use a lot of our surplus land and land along the tracks to generate 20 GW (gigawatts)…'Made in India' solar or wind equipment being used to give us 20 GW production capacity of renewable energy and enough KW (kilowatt) hours to power our entire railway," Goyal said. He also said that the Railways will have to either expand battery storage or other forms of storage for this.

Railways has already awarded contract for 3 GW solar plants to REMCL

Goyal's statement comes two months after RITES Limited's subsidiary REMCL (Railway Energy Management Company Ltd) secured its largest mandate from the Indian Railways for handling the tendering, installation, supervision and managing power supply from 3 GW solar power plants to be set-up on vacant Railway Land in June. The project is to be executed in 3 phases of 1 GW each, RITES had said. The entire installation is expected to be completed by 2022-23.

The backdrop

The Railways has large tracts of land along its tracks which can be leveraged to set up solar power generation capacities. This is significant because it will help the national transporter cut down its electricity bill. It consumes 12 BU of electricity annually. The Railways plans to become a "net zero" carbon emitter by 2030.

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