BHOPAL: Close monitoring of operations, proper upkeep and innovative steps taken under Solar Mission-2021-22, has resulted in the productivity of solar plants in North Central Railway registering an upward growth.
While North Central Railway generated over one crore units of solar energy last financial year, in the first three months of this financial year 37 lakh units has been already been generated using solar power.
Gwalior solar plant generated 6.73 lakh units of solar energy in 2020-21 — saving a revenue of 20.29 lakh. In first quarter of 2021-22 Gwalior solar plant has produced more than 2 lakh units of energy, thus saving 6.3 lakh of revenue.
Shivam Sharma, the CPRO of NCR zone said, “NCR has set an ambitious target for 2021-22 to generate solar energy to the tune of 1.3 crore units, thereby saving about Rs 5 crores under the aforesaid ‘Solar Mission - NCR’.”
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.
Fifteen solar plants of Prayagraj Division, nine 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 roof top 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 HIGHEST EVER solar energy to the tune of 1.3 crore units, thereby saving about Rs 5 crore, i.e. Rs 1 croremore than the last year, under the aforesaid ‘Solar Mission - North Central Railway’.
