Monday 5 August 2013

IIT Madras Will Power AC Coaches In Indian Railways With Solar Energy

Indian Railways will soon have the AC coaches
powered by solar energy. The Integral Coach
Factory at Chennai has joined hands with IIT
Madras to design coaches that will use solar
energy to power the air conditioning systems.
In addition, the solar energy will be used to
power the lighting inside the coaches. This
would be the first project of its kind that
Indian Railways is undertaking to tap solar
energy.
Indian Railways, world's largest railway system,
is looking to tap alternative, cleaner sources of
energy to reduce its overall dependence on
fossil fuels and the power grid. Indian Railways
is looking at massive scaling of AC coaches in
the coming future, which would result into
increased spending on the fuels unless other
mechanisms are developed power them.
A senior ICF official has said that they've asked
IIT Madras to find out various ways to tap the
solar power and use it for interior lighting and
cooling. An MoU has been signed about a
month ago and preliminary discussions have
started with professors to develop a feasible
model.
No information is available yet on how long
will this project take. We'd like to ask our
fellow engineers for their opinion on this
project and what'd be the ways to make this
possible? How do you propose to tap the solar
energy for use in railways?

0 comments:

Post a Comment