The Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. M.G. Ramachandran Central or Chennai Central railway station, under the South Central Railway (SCR), has met the 100% day energy requirement target by solar panels installed on the platform shelters of the station. Informing about the same, Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted, “100% Day energy requirement of Chennai Central Station is met by #SolarPower.”
The station have installed solar power capacity of 1.5MW and all the electricity needs of the station during the daytime are met by solar power.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi also took to Twitter to laud this great initiative, saying “Happy to see the Puratchi Thalaivar Dr M.G. Ramachandran Central Railway Station show the way when it comes to solar energy.”
SCR is the first of many Indian Railway zones that has adopted the concept of ‘Energy Neutral’ railway stations. The Chennai Railway station is now capable of meeting its 100% energy requirements by solar power commissioned on its 13 station buildings.
Along with that, power panels have been installed at various locations and railway stations including the MMC complex, Tambaram, Mambalam, Katpati, and others.
Indian Railways moving towards “net-zero carbon emission”
To become the world’s largest green railway network, Indian Railways is now moving towards “net-zero carbon emission” before the year 2030. Earlier, on the occasion of World Environment Day 2021, the national transporter, in a statement had stated that the railways is moving towards a complete green restart.
In order to harness the extreme potential of Renewable energy, the railways is aggressively pushing towards the installation of solar-powered stations that will contribute to environmental protection.
In this regard, the recent achievement by SCR has already set a deep foot towards Indian Railways’ “Green Restart” goal.
