NFR moves to cut down fossil fuel consumption

GUWAHATI: The Indian Railways is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuel in the form of diesel. Thousands of diesel locomotives that are in operation and diesel operated generators in LHB (Linke Hofmann Busch) model trains consume lot of diesel oil. However, of late various initiatives have been taken by NFR to cut down the use of fossil fuel in line with the environment friendly policies of the Railway Ministry. This is expected to not only cut down the train operation cost but also the precious foreign exchange of the country which is needed to import fossil fuel apart from reducing air pollution.

LHB coaches are the passenger coaches of Indian Railways that have been developed by Linke-Hofmann-Busch of Germany (renamed Alstom LHB GmbH in 1998 after the takeover by Alstom) and mostly produced by Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala, India.

"Auxiliary Power Unit" (APU) have already been fitted in 94 out of 399 diesel locomotives in NFR for saving of diesel fuel consumption when the engine is kept in idle condition. Normally a diesel engine consumes about 25 ltrs of diesel per hour during idling condition i.e. when the train is not moving. But with the use of APU the idling consumption gets reduced by 1/10 to just 2.5 ltrs per hour. Thus huge quantity of diesel oil can be saved.

The APU is a self contained system with its own small diesel engine coupled to low capacity compressor and alternator to maintain the main reservoir pressure, battery charging, operate the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) system in driver's cabin and other small loads as per requirement. The main engine gets started only when it is actually required for movement.

HVAC is the technology of indoor and vehicular environmental comfort. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. The central control system of the locomotive continuously monitors the battery status, engine temperature, idling status etc. If the engine idling time is more than 10 minutes, the system automatically shuts down the main engine and run the APU engine. The APU has a baby compressor, which produces compressed air and feed locomotive main reservoir to compensate the formation leakages. When the APU engine is in operation, the system continuously monitors the critical parameters and ensures that they are within limits. If any of the monitored parameters are deviated from the limits, main engine starts automatically by stopping the APU engine, stated a release.

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