Transition towards environmentally sustainable operations in carriage and wagon workshop units of Indian railways

Abstract

Transport in India accounts for more than 50% of country’s total petroleum consumption and more than 25% of the overall energy needs. IR being major part of transport accounts for 13% of total GHG emissions. Railway transport is relatively more efficient than road transports therefore increase of Railways share in both passenger and freight movement is indispensable for improved energy efficiency of the transport sector thereby reducing GHG emissions of the country. Govt of India as part of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) has set target of 33% reduction in emission intensity. Transport sector particularly Railways being key stakeholder holds substantial potential for emissions reductions in areas of both traction and non-traction. IR emission intensity reduction strategy was included in INDC document and submitted in COP 21 in Oct 2015, organized by UNFCCC in Paris. INDC is ratified by India in 2016 and India now has an official mandated target of activities for meeting INDC commitments for 2030. IR actions in NDC for reducing GHG emissions include inter alia, GHG emission reduction by 33% up to 2030 over 2005 levels, DFC Eastern & Western corridors to be ready by 2020 which would save 457 million tonnes of CO2 over 30 year period, increased share of renewable energy in the energy mix, increased share of IR in freight from current 35% to 45% by 2030. Railways share the biggest responsibility of the Govt of India in meeting GHG emissions reduction target. Actions like operation of DFC corridors includes increased demand of wagons ready to be deployed for traffic thereby leading to enhanced expectation from the POH capacities of the workshop. Workshops catering to this increased load are to be committed towards sustainability to meet overall goal of IR & GoI for GHG emissions reductions. IR POH capacity to be improved significantly leading to more energy consumptions in workshops. Hence, workshop transition towards sustainability is indispensable. This will include all activities which will contribute towards emissions reductions. This Policy paper focuses on demand side of energy uses of C&W workshops and estimates of growth of consumption of energy by 2030 and associates carbon & other emissions. Paper begins with energy profiling of workshops, builds GHG inventory of 18 major workshops of IR and projects the demands up to 2030 to estimate the carbon emissions and required mitigation potential. Paper proceeds in case study of Kota workshop to take up the detailed study which is later extended to all major workshops of IR. In order to understand the future in the energy consumption and associated environmental impacts, paper questions about various scenarios to build on the status quo and to find out the imminent threats and opportunities to be addressed while making any policy decisions. This paper identifies & explores four actions such as business as usual, fuel substitution, green energy substitution and energy efficiency options. For environmental analysis, this paper quantifies various scenarios, in electricity consumption, it identifies three scenarios Business As Usual (BAU), Best Case Scenario (BCS) & Accelerated Scenario (ACS) and projects demand up to 2030 and associated emissions of CO2, SO2 & NO. It has been projected that by solar substitution in accelerated mode, by 2030 complete decarbonization is possible for Kota workshop with associated cost savings. To assess the cost effectiveness of the interventions, financial analysis has been done and it is projected that besides giving IRR of 8%, solar substitution leads to cumulative savings of INR 1 Cr, CNG substitution besides having potential of IRR 120%, leads to cumulative savings of INR 6 cr by 2030 besides helping in carbon emission mitigation. Having established the benefits of interventions, various challenges and issues have been addressed with regard to policy implementation. On the one hand Solar Technology offers environmental benefits and is considered a clean source of energy generation. It is also considered as integral part of sustainable energy in the time to come as projected by CEA. However, there are few negative environmental effects of this system (PV Cells etc) which happens during production & operations. Potential burden on environment has been documented in the literature due to deployment of solar energy systems to replace fossil fuel based energy generation. Besides environmental issues, paper also addresses two key issues – state policies and load balancing. State policies regarding net metering and open access are going to affect the implementation of solar substitution especially in non traction part to which workshops of IR are part of. Issue of load balancing is also important due to intermittent and variable nature of solar power hence it requires load balancing which requires technology such as energy storage in order to ensure consistent supply of electricity. IR needs to work towards setting priorities in green energy policies aligned to IR’s requirements and at the same time, IR should develop capacities to understand and implement decarbonization in non traction in a positive way.