North Central Railway
Headquarter
Public Relations
Prayagraj
No. 11PR/05/2020Press ReleaseDate: 29.06.20
Important initiatives on North Central Railway towards reduction in consumption of High Speed Diesel (HSD) and use of Renewable energy sources
As its commitment to remain eco-friendly North Central Railway has taken series of steps towards reducing dependence on non-renewable sources of energy, bringing efficiency in use of energy and utilizing non conventional sources to meet its energy requirement.
Towards promoting greener energy North Central Railway is expeditiously electrifying its broad-gaugenetwork and 226 km broad gauge routes were electrified during 2019-20 including important section of Chunar- Chopan of Prayagraj Division which is now being utilized for running average 5 freight trains on daily basis through electrictraction. Prior to suspension of regular passenger services due to Covid-19 all 05 passenger services in this section were also operating through electric traction. Further to conserve HSD in existing diesel locomotives fleet it is being ensured that diesel locomotives are shut down during idling and non-usage period. With increased used of electric locomotives and through close monitoring of diesel locomotives, 160 Lakhs litres HSD could be saved during 2019-20.To bring further economy in use of High Speed Diesel (HSD), all 16 LHB rakes of NCR utilized in different originating passenger trains are HOG (Head on Generation) compliant thus using electric energy for lights, fans , ACs etc. directly from OHE routed through locomotives thus saving of 75000 liters annually.
Besides saving of HSD, part of electric energy could also be saved by use of modern three phase electric locomotive which acts as electrical energy generator during braking process and energy thus generated is fed back to grid achieving overall energy efficiency. Through this process of electricity regeneration whopping 12.61 crores units of electricity could be saved in 2019-20. Besides energy saving regenerative braking also reduces wear and tear in locomotive and coaches as unlike conventional braking regenerative braking process.
On use of renewable source of energy, NCR has been the leading Railway with installed solar plant capacity of 11 Megawatt thus using 85.55 Lakhs unit of solar electricity annually instead of electricity obtained from conventional coal or gas plants which are non-renewable sources. Besides using solar energy, NCR has also gone for 100 % energy efficient LED lighting in its 1600 coaches, 265 offices, 338 stations, 02 workshops and 26000 railway quarters saving additional 1.5 Crores unit of electricity annually.
