Trains, Powered By Sunshine, in Belgium and India
Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
The Swiss Solar Impulse 2 (solar airplane) and French solar rooftops have inspired me to look toward other forms of transport and surface areas to be powered by or used to generate solar energy. It’s fantastic that there had been quite a few interesting progress made in the area of trains. Case in point, the high speed train powered by solar energy, in the video below, was in service back in 2011 in Belgium:
About 4461 miles (or 7179 km) away, India is planning to massively utilize the solar energy via its state-owned railway systems. With one of the largest railway networks in the world, running about 12,000 trains, 23 million passengers (practically the entire Australian population), and 3 million tonnes of freight daily, much energy is needed. In 2012, the Indian Railways consumed nearly 3 million kiloliters of diesel oil and about 14 billion kWh of electricity . So, India’s railway minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu wants to control such a ballooning fuel bill by shifting toward alternative energy sources. Since the Indian Railway System is aiming to have at least 10% of its total energy consumption coming from renewable energy by 2020, the railway minister wants to incorporate more alternative energy sources to power trains. This is first done by solar powered lighting via solar panels mounted on the roofs of the trains. This is now being tested on a non-AC coach on the Rewari–Sitapur passenger train.
The cost of installing panels on each coach is about Rs3.9 lakh (about $6,084), translating into savings of Rs1.24 lakh (about $1,934) per year, According to The Economic Times of India Times. In the next few weeks, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and the railway coach maker Integral Coach Factory will be testing the solar paneled coach under a variety of conditions. Besides the solar powered coach, the Indian Railways will also be building solar power plants of about 8.8 MW (megawatts) in 200 train stations and some of its office buildings.
Without the common vision and collaborations from policy makers, such ambitious projects would not have existed. In India, it took the echoing support between India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and railway minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu to enable such a solar project to become a reality. Prime Minister Modi encouraged alternative energy projects by encouraging solar companies from around the world to invest $100 billion to reach its solar power capacity target of 100,000 MW by 2022 (about five times India’s current solar power generation capacity). He was also instrumental behind another ambitious project, World’s First Canal Solar Power Plant in India, in Gujarat, in one of our previous post.
I hope all policy makers and governing bodies will receive the support he/she/they/it need(s) during this critical transitional period in human history, onward and forward toward the renewable/solar energy future! For deep down, within all of our hearts, we know that Solar/Renewable/Clean Energy is the solution/answer to Energy-Pollution-Economic Prosperity-International Conflicts. The sooner we get there, the better it will be for us and our posterity. In our system of democracy, perhaps all of us may be able to help play a part in assisting our policy makers in arriving at the correct decisions or policies quickly.
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
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