In a bid to reduce pollution, the government is planning to construct an electric highway between the national capital Delhi and the financial capital Mumbai. Trolleybus and heavy vehicle owners will be able to run trolley trucks on the e-highway, Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said at an event organised by the Hydraulic Trailer Owners Association (HTOA) on July 11.
The minister has been pushing for the adoption of electric vehicles and encouraging electrification in India. Back in 2016, Gadkari had told PTI in an interview that the country would have an ‘electric highway’ stretch, similar to the one in Sweden.
At present, the world’s longest electric highway is in Berlin, which stretched over 109 km. If the government’s plan materialises, then India will have the world’s largest electric highway.
What is e-highway?
E-highways are an energy-efficient option where the road provides electricity to moving vehicles mostly through overhead power lines.
In 2012, engineering giant Siemens announced its eHighway concept at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles. The concept involved trucks powered by electricity from electric lines over the road.
On a test track in Europe, Siemens ran trucks with conductors on top that would make contact with overhead electric lines on e-highways. The electricity would power the trucks' electric drive motors, shutting the diesel engines. The diesel engines would again start up when the trucks left the lanes with overhead wires.
Pilot projects using Seimens’ system were planned for the Port of Los Angeles, and Long Beach in California. In 2019, Germany introduced its first hybrid electric-diesel truck on a three-mile-long stretch on Autobahn 5 between Darmstadt and Frankfurt.
In India
Gadkari had earlier said the government was planning to build an e-highway on the 1,300-km Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. The e-highway would allow trucks and buses to move at a speed of 120 kmph.
The Delhi-Mumbai expressway, which is under construction, is likely to have a separate lane for the electric highway, Moneycontrol reported. The proposed project is likely to be on the lines of what Siemens is doing. However, the plans are still at an early stage.
The construction of e-highways has been a “dream project” for the Union minister.
“My dream is to make an electric highway between Delhi and Jaipur,” PTI had quoted the minister as saying in March this year.
