India is rolling out trains with solar-powered coaches that’ll save thousands of litres of diesel
Indian Railways has ambitious plans for solar. By 2020, the state-run transportation network plans to generate around 1,000 megawatts (MW) of solar power, which could be scaled up to 5,000 MW by 2025. These numbers are not only significant for the railways, given that it’ll help bring down the fuel bill, but will also impact India’s overall renewable energy goal of 175 gigawatt (1 GW = 1,000 MW) by 2022.
So far, Indian Railways has made limited progress. Out of its 1 GW solar target, only about 16MW of capacity (pdf) has been installed, as of March 2017. However, nearly 255 MW of rooftop and 250 MW of land-based solar projects are in the pipeline, with around 130 MW of capacity already awarded.