The first success story of retrofitting street lights with LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs emerged when the Hudhud cyclone hit the east coast of India in 2017. Seven districts in Andhra Pradesh were retrofitted with 1 million LED street lights, accruing a benefit of Rs 82 crore annually on the state's power bill. Since then, LED street lighting has caught on in the country, providing monetary benefit and safer roads.
At the forefront of the LED installation programmes across the country is the state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) which carried out its first retrofitting programme in 2014 for Pondicherry. In the five years since, it has installed 10 million LED street lights across the country. The scheme has covered almost all states of the country covering 270,000 km of roads in India, EESL claims.
“The installation of 10million LED street lights has resulted in annual energy savings of 6.71 billion kWh (kilowatt hour), resulting in cost savings of approximately Rs 5,570 crore annually,” Saurabh Kumar, managing director, EESL told this paper. The company itself saved a total of Rs 900 crore during last financial year from the scheme, which it expects to grow to Rs 1,400 crore in the current fiscal.
To ensure the programme runs successfully, EESL trained the the maintenance staff of municipalities and also created occupational standards by joining hands with the National Skill Development Corporation.
Among private companies, Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) executed ‘Street Light Project’ of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) last year for the 104 wards of North Delhi Municipal Corporation area. It converted 85,000 street light points to LED lights and replaced more than 135,000 lights with LED, leading to saving of close to 85 MW (mega watt) of power demand load.
Furthermore, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal last week announced the 'Mukhyamantri Street Light Yojana' under which over two lakh street lights would be installed in the city. “There are many dark spots in different parts of Delhi, where women are unsafe. We will identify such dark spots and install 200,000 street lights so that women feel safe in the city,” Kejriwal said in a public statement.
Even then, street light installation still face challenges. Poor electrical infrastructure is the prime concern. In some cases, there are no dedicated street light infrastructure with more than 80 per cent lights installed on poles meant for transmission of power.
In the next phase of its street lightning program, EESL will focus on gram panchayats. The number of lights required in lighting villages is estimated at 3.5 crore, EESL said. The company is also planning to convert all street lights in the country to LED.
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