As part of its move to reduce energy cost, Railways has signed first bilateral power procurement agreement with Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) to purchase 50 MW of electricity.
The agreement was signed between North Central Railway and DVC yesterday.
Under the agreement, Railways would buy 50 MW of power from DVC at Auraiya Grid Sub-station facilitated by Railways Energy Management Company Limited, a Joint Venture (JV) of Indian railway and RITES, a Railway Ministry PSU.
This is the beginning of energy cost reduction measure being taken up by Railways, says a release.
Railways are the biggest consumer of the electricity, consuming about 18 billion units per year with peak requirement of about 4000 MW.
In order to enable Railways to buy power directly from suppliers, Railways have been notified as 'Deemed Licensee' by Ministry of Power.
Railway is working to go for more such contracts at key load centres in the coming days which will enable the national transporter to generate significant savings in its traction electricity bills.
