• How Is India Keeping on Track with its Diesel Reduction?

Air Monitoring

How Is India Keeping on Track with its Diesel Reduction?

Aug 16 2017

India continued with plans to cut diesel emissions by unveiling a new fleet of solar-powered trains last month. Fitted with 16 solar panels capable of generating up to 7,200 MW of energy every year, the trains are designed to meet all energy needs other than propulsion through nothing more than the rays of the sun.

While diesel will still be used to power the locomotive of the trains, expert estimate that they will be able to save 21,000 litres of diesel every year through using renewables to power its lights, fans and other electrical features. In emissions terms, that translates to roughly nine tonnes of carbon per coach per year – no small amount in the grand scheme of things.

An evolving infrastructure

There are over 71,000 miles (114,263km) of railway track across India. 11,000 individual trains run every single day, with more than 23 million people using the massive network to commute to work, visit family and friends or just get from A to B. As such, it’s the second largest rail network in Asia and the fourth biggest in the world.

All those trains contribute to India’s terrible air quality issues. The advent of mobile monitoring stations which assess diesel emissions have identified that fuel as one of the chief causal factors in poor air quality, which has led Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu to introduce the new Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) coaches.

No easy task

“It is not an easy task to fit solar panels on the roof of train coaches that run at a speed of 80 km per hour,” explained Sundeep Gupta, managing director of the company behind the DEMU trains. “Our engineering skills were put to a real test during the execution of this rooftop solar project for the Indian Railways.”

The sun will power the hotel load (all energy needs other than propulsion) of the train while in motion, while excess energy will be stored in batteries for use during the night. Now that the initial solar panels are in place, the scheme is going to be trialled on just six trains this year. However, if all goes well, the eventual plan is to implement the solar-powered system on 250 trains across Kolkata in the near future.

Turning of the Indian tide?

After a new monitoring system detected literally thousands of environmental violations in India every day last year, the Indian government decided to take action on the subject. The introduction of the DEMU trains is just one part of their multifaceted plan to curb emissions and do their bit to rein in climate change.

For example, they have also announced plans to ban the sale of fossil fuel-powered vehicles in the country by 2030, promoting the uptake of electrical vehicles (EVs) in a big way. They also recently broke the world record for number of trees planted in 12 hours by setting down the roots of more than 66 million saplings in a single half-day.


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