Government plans to promote renewable energy for public transport

The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is working on a proposal to powering city public transport from renewable sources.

As per the plan, the Ministry will select few cities where tender will be floated to generate renewable energy through solar, wind, or hybrid, and using that to make hydrogen fuel or charging batteries to power the city transport buses.

To begin with, the Ministry will select one or two cities for a pilot project with one for hydrogen another for recharging batteries. In the selected cities entire public transport system will run on renewable energy, said an official in the Ministry.

The ministry is looking for per kilometer cost of city transport in renewable energy should be equal to or less than the present per kilometer cost of diesel-driven buses said an official in the Ministry.

"The ministry will tie-up with state government and select cities for the pilot project. Running public transport using renewable energy would not only reduce the cost of operation but also helps reduce pollution," said the official.

At present some cities do operate some battery or alternative fuel buses in their public transport network, which supplied under the Centrally sponsored Centre Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India). The scheme launched in April 2015 to promote green vehicles in the public transport system.

The government spent Rs 343 crore under Phase-I of FAME scheme launched 2015 and under Phase-II of FAME, which started April 1, 2019, the government plans to spend Rs 10,000 crore for a three-year period.

In Phase-II, the government aims to support through subsidies 7,000 e-Buses, five lakh electric three-wheelers, 55,000 electric four-wheeler passenger cars, and 10 lakh electric two-wheelers.

India is aggressively pushing for renewable energy as the country aims to have around 60 % of its installed electricity generation capacity from clean sources by 2030.

In September last year at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced increasing the renewable energy target to 450 GW by 2030 from 175 GW by 2022.