OJSC “Russian Railways”, one of Russia’s largest systemically important enterprises, operates in accordance with principles of sustainable development. To date, OJSC “Russian Railways” has successfully implemented two solar generation projects. The Hevel Group, the only Russian manufacturer of PV-modules with 10 years of experience in solar energy, participated as a service provider.
Successful long-term experience in solar generation at other Russian Railways facilities in Anapa and Sochi allowed the launch of the following project to construct a Hevel solar power plant. This time the Svetlograd station of the North Caucasian railway was chosen as the site.
The Svetlograd railway station is located in the Stavropol Territory. It is a junction railway station in the Mineralovodsk region of the North Caucasian Railway, located in the city of Svetlograd, Stavropol Territory, on the Palagiada–Elista main line and the beginning of the branch to Budyonnovsk.
A prerequisite for using solar energy at the railway station was to reduce the cost of supplying power to the railway station’s infrastructure by replacing some of its consumption with its own electricity generation.
The Hevel Group supplied the equipment and installed the solar power system, rated at 30.7 kW, to supply power to the Svetlograd railway station in the Stavropol Territory.
The ground-mounted grid-connected photovoltaic system was built from 60-cell 320 W heterojunction PV-modules produced at the Hevel plant in Novocheboksarsk. The efficiency of a solar cell on such modules reaches 23%. The solar system can reduce the cost of supplying power to the railway station’s infrastructure by replacing part of its consumption with its own power generation. The predicted output of the solar power system is 38,500 kWh per year.
The project took only 2 months to implement. In December 2019, the grid-connected solar power plant began operations successfully.
In 2020, OJSC “Russian Railways” together with LLC “Hevel” developed an online calculator that is available on OJSC “Russian Railways” website. If the necessary initial information is provided, the tool allows railway enterprises to get technical and economic calculations related to the use of solar generation at their own facility. This calculator will form the basis for forming programs to deploy “green technologies” in OJSC “Russian Railways” in 2021-2025 at subsequent railway facilities.
*The cost of electricity is calculated in the period of SPP operation - 25 years