Commerce, Industry and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that Indian Railways plans to use its surplus land to generate 20 GW of renewable energy from ‘Made in India’ solar or wind equipment to power its network,.
Indian Railways will be a 100 per cent electricity-driven rail network in coming years which would make it the largest such network in the world, said the minister.
The railway minister addressing CEEW India’s programme on ‘Powering Livelihoods: Transforming India’s Rural Economy with Clean Energy Solutions, said “We plan to use a lot of our surplus land and land along the tracks to generate 20 GW (gigawatts)…’Made in India’ solar or wind equipment being used to give us 20 GW production capacity of renewable energy and enough KW (kilowatt) hours to power our entire railway.”
He further added that the railways may need to either expand battery storage or other forms of storage for this.