The East Coast Railway observed the Energy Conservation Week from December 8 to 14. A march past was organised in all three divisions and staff and officers of the colonies with slogans and placards created awareness of energy conservation.
Under the guidance of Principal Chief Electrical Engineer Basudev Panda, a webinar was conducted on December 14 to mark the Energy Conservation Day celebration. Booklets on awareness were distributed among the staff and officers of headquarters and Divisions.
The ECoR has 96.6 percent of electrified track out of 2,708 route km and the remaining 105 route km is targeted for completion in 2020-21. With this, ECoR will become completely electrified railway zone by March 2021. Provision of solar photovoltaic plants in railway premises will reduce dependency on fossil fuel based electricity and result in reduction in emission of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases.
Thus, the ECoR is focusing on solar energy for long term energy security and ecological security by reducing carbon emission.
The ECoR has planned commissioning of solar plants on roof tops of various buildings, workshops, hospitals, railway stations totaling 13.5 MWp to substitute 20 percent energy, for which work is in progress.
Further, the ECoR has identified 476 acres of land, for installing “land based solar PV installations” to the capacity of 86.5 MWp, to augment renewal energy generation for meeting traction loads to the maximum extent.
Once these solar plants are commissioned, the ECoR will have 100MWp of installed solar power leading to reduction of carbon emission by 96,000 tones per annumWith the provision of LED lights, total 2.4 MW of connected load has been reduced. The provision of LED lights has resulted in reduction in annual energy consumption by 10.4 million units and reduction in emission of carbon dioxide by 8500 tones per annum.
During 2019-20, 38 pairs of trains have been converted to Head on Generation (HOG) system to substitute diesel oil.