Indian Railways and BHEL jointly commission India’s first Solar Photovoltaic Plant.

Why in news?

• Indian Railways along Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), has successfully commissioned India’s first Solar Photovoltaic Plant of 1.7-MegaWatt (MW) at Bina, Madhya Pradesh.
• The plant is under extensive testing and will be in operation for Indian Railways.
• The solar plant will be directly connected to the overhead traction system. And will produce approximately 25 lakh units of energy annually.
• The plant has 5800 solar modules, mounted on 145 sets of modular mounting structure.
• The construction of a solar plant by Indian Railways is a step to fulfil its self-sufficient energy needs by ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.
• The solar power plant has been installed on vacant unused lands for Renewable Energy (RE) projects of Indian Railways.
• Aim:
• The installation of the solar plants is to achieve conversion of Indian Railways to ‘Net Zero’ Carbon Emission and ‘Go Green’ by 2030.
• Aiming to reduce 2,160 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission every year.
• Aims to save around Rs 1.37 crore every year.
• Technology Involved:
• The solar plant converts Direct Current (DC) into Single Phase Alternating Current (AC) to feed directly to the Overhead Traction System of Railways.
• The high capacity inverters were used to convert DC energy to AC energy of 25 kilovolts (kV) AC-1 power to run electric trains.