ABB (www.abb.com) will provide solar inverters to 750 railway stations in north India, to reduce dependence on traditional sources of energy.

Indian Railways, which runs one of the largest railway networks in the world, carries more than eight billion passengers annually.

The stations are located in the busy northern Indian part of the network, one of the most used ‘railway corridors’ in the world.

ABB recently reached a milestone, with the 5GW of solar inverters installed supplying some 40% of India’s solar.

ABB solar inverters for this project — TRIO and PVI types — are in the range 5-50kW, depending on the size of the station.

ABB set up a manufacturing facility in India in 2012, and the solar inverters made there have been widely used in the transportation sector — including the world’s first fully solar powered airport in Kochi.

Northern India benefits from 300 sunny days a year, making solar power a viable alternative to conventional electricity, much of which is generated using coal.

Giovanni Frassineti, head of ABB’s solar business globally, said: “Supporting our customers to help build the infrastructure for renewable energy all around the world helps drive goals to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions.

"Driving the energy revolution in sectors like transportation is a part of ABB’s next-level strategy.”

Indian Railways moves more than 12,500 trains and 23 million passengers daily; it also operates more than 8,000 stations across the country and is looking at building solar plants to supply clean power for these operations.

The company currently has a renewable energy generation capacity of 36MW and has plans to ramp this up to 1,000MW.

ABB is the leading global supplier of solar inverters, which range from 1.2kW to 2.3MW. It operates in more than 100 countries and has about 132,000 employees.