LED bulbs are slowly but steadily making inroads in middle class families. Special stalls were pitched recently in the government offices complex in New Delhi and people, flaunted ID proof and latest power bill, to purchase LED bulbs at a highly subsidised price.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched LED based home and street lighting programme on January 5 this year.
The plan envisages to cover 100 cities by March next year and balance by March 2019, targeting 77 crore ordinary bulbs and 3.5 crore conventional street lights.
“For us LED bulbs is simple mathematics. They save money on power bill ,and it should be made freely available in markets if the government is serious in energy conservation”, said Ramadheen, a staff member in one of the offices in nearby buildings while watching brisk sale of bulbs.
Informatively, 77 crore incandescent bulbs were sold in 2013-14 which if replaced by LEDs will result in reduction of 20,000 MW load and energy savings of 100 billion kWh (Kilowatt hour) every year.
Total saving in electricity bills of consumers will be Rs 40,000 crore every year, considering average tariff of Rs 4 per kWh. Average reduction of electricity bill of consumers is pegged at Rs160-400 per year per LED ( light emitting diode).
There are 3.5 crore street lights in the country with a load of 3,400 MW which can be reduced to 1,400 MW by replacing conventional lights with LED based street lights which could lead to saving of about 9,000 million units annually worth Rs 5,500 crore to municipalities annually.
Now 100 cities have been taken up for coverage under Street Lighting Programme (SLP) and Domestic Lighting Programme (DELP).
As many as 186 cities have been enrolled in the DELP programme. Work has been completed in some places in Andhra Pradesh (Guntur, Anantpur, Srikakulam, West Godavari) and Puducherry.
About one crore LEDs have been distributed. Distribution is in progress in Delhi, Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur, Thane, Mulund, Bhandup, Ratnagiri, Kanpur and Varanasi.
Agreements with 63 cities were signed in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi NCR and agreements with 68 more (Maharashtra, UP, AP and Himachal Pradesh) are in final stages.
The government plans to distribute 15 crore LEDs by March 2016. Officials say 302 ULBS have enrolled in the programme.
Meanwhile, work in six ULBs –Vizag, Jhalawar, Mt Abu, Pushkar, Neelimarna and Agartala has been completed with 2,07,00 street lights replacement.
Installation is in progress in 88 ULBs in Delhi, Rajasthan and AP to replace 9.3 lakh lights. Agreements with 90 municipalities is under finalisation and 15 lakh LEDs will be installed by March next year.
Amid LED bulbs replacing ordinary bulbs and CFLs, officials giving overall power scenario, say power generation growth was highest this year in 20 years – 8.4%, coal production growth most in 23 years – 8.3%, and solar capacity increased by 42%.
On the emerging scenario, Power Minister Piyush Goyal says a slew of measures were taken to ensure 24×7 power supply round the year.mSteps are under way to amend the electricity bill.
Future plans launched include more than five-fold increase in renewable energy capacity to 175,000 MW by 2022 (Organised Renewables Financing Conference, RE-Invest 2015 which attracted commitments of 273,000 MW) and five new UMPPs (ultra mega power projects) in plug-n-play mode(total 20,000 MW).
Other aims are reduction in peak load shortages through revival of stranded gas based power plants through transparent e-bidding, Rs 1.09 lakh crore investment in sub-transmission and distribution through Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) and Rs. 1 lakh crore of new transmission projects to be bid out in the current year.
Clean energy will be prioritised with 25 solar parks of about 100 MW each planned and a Rs 38,000 crore green energy corridor being set up to transmit renewable energy.