The South East Central Railway (SECR) will be putting up a Rooftop Solar Power plant at the Wagon Repair Shop in Raipur, officials said.
Notably, the SECR in January this year had also ordered comprehensive Energy Audit for its Wagon Repair Shop (WRS) in Raipur.
The SECR headquarters in Bilaspur is already being turned into a ‘green building’. A major move is underway to adopt use of solar power as renewal source of electrical energy especially in SECR’s office buildings, officials stated.
Continuing its effort to promote the use of renewable energy, the SECR Raipur division has also installed solar panels at level-crossings existing in remote pockets of the division.
Under this move, the Railways has initially equipped as many as nine cottages of manned level-crossing with solar panels
The power generated by the solar panels has brought down the power consumption at these level-crossings by upto 60 percent. The solar power plant would be of 500 Kwh capacity.
The power generated by these solar panels are being utilised for lighting, phone recharging and others purpose. The estimated cost of installing solar panels at level crossing is around ` 20000 and it generates around 150 units of electricity. With minimum maintenance, these solar panels last for several years ranging for 15 to 20 years.
Notably,the SECR's Raipur Division has also achieved energy conservation targets by distributing light Emitting Diode (lED) bulbs in 70 days.
Interestingly, on October 14 last year the target was assigned to distribute 60,000 lED bulbs among the officers and staff of the division within a period of one year.
Instead, of a year, the division successfully completed the target in 70 days due to the overwhelming response of the employees.