1.34 crore street lights to be replaced with LED by March 2020
The minster switched on the one croreth LED street light by a remote switch. These lights have been installed under the Street Light National Programme (SLNP). It is being implemented by state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL).
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The one crore LED street lights have resulted in annual savings of 6.7 billion units and avoided 1,119.40 MW of peak power demand, the minister said, adding, these one crore lights reduce green house gases emission by 4.63 million tonnes every year.
He also informed that these street lights have covered 2.7 lakh kilometers. By March 2020, SLNP aims to replace 1.34 crore conventional street lights in India with smart LEDs. This will make a tremendous difference, enabling peak demand reduction of about 1,500 MW, annual energy savings of 9 billion kWh, and reduction in 6.2 Million tonnes of CO2 per year.
The EESL is planning to bring Rs 8,000 crore investment by 2024 to cover entire rural India in next 4-5 years. It is expected that more than 30 million LED street lights will be retrofitted/installed by EESL.
Under SLNP, Andhra Pradesh is leading the way among the states, with an installation of 28.9 lakhs LED street lights followed by Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh with 10.3 lakhs and 9.3 lakhs, respectively.
As on date, 1,502 urban local bodies (ULBs) across India have been enrolled under the programme and out of these ULBs, work has been completed in around 900 such bodies.
To bring large scale transformation, EESL adopted Pay-As-You-Save (PAYS) model, where it makes the entire upfront investment in installation of LED street lights and no additional budget allocation from the municipalities is required.
The contract with the municipalities/ULBs is for a period of 7 years. The seven-year contract with the local bodies guarantees a minimum energy saving of typically 50 per cent and provides free replacements and maintenance of lights at no additional cost to the civic partners.
The municipalities pay EESL from their savings in energy and maintenance cost over a seven-year period, making the LED lights affordable and accessible.