India’s first rural LED street lighting to come up in Andhra Pradesh 

LED

India’s first rural LED street lighting project is expected to come up in Andhra Pradesh, one of the key states in the country.

The state government will install 10 lakh or 1 million LED street lights in Gram Panchayats of 7 districts in the State; Guntur, Prakasham, Nellore, Kurnool, Kadapa, Ananthapur & Chittoor in first phase.

Estimated annual savings in energy consumption will be 147 million units and the LED project will prevent 12 crore tons equivalent of CO2 emissions.

The project will be executed through the Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) under the Ministry of Power. EESL would be carrying out the entire annual maintenance and warranty replacement in these gram panchayats for a period of 10 years.

This is the first project for rural LED street lighting in the country under the Government of India’s Street Lighting National Project (SLNP).

In the first phase, the replacement will be undertaken in gram panchayats of the districts of Guntur, Prakasham, Nellore, Kurnool, Kadapa, Ananthapur and Chittoor.

The capital cost of this project is being funded by French Development Agency Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD).

Earlier this year, N Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, stated that approximately 30 lakh conventional street lights across villages in the state would be replaced by LED street lights by 2018.

Through the installation of 10 lakh LED street lights, EESL has assured the State government of approximately 59 percent savings in electricity, which translates to annual monetary savings of Rs 88.2 crore.

Andhra Pradesh was the first state to seek assistance from EESL to replace conventional street lighting with LED lighting in Visakhapatnam, after the cyclone Hudhud caused extensive damage to the then existing street lighting infrastructure.

Ever since, EESL has installed over 5,90,000 LED street lights in the state. These installations have led to an annual savings of over 7.8 crore kWh, translating into an annual reduction of over 65,000 tons of CO2.

Nationally, over 23 lakh conventional street lights have been replaced by LED street lights in 21 States of India. As per the 18th Electric Power Survey of Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the estimated energy consumption in Indian public lighting sector is 8478 M KWh in 2012-13 and is constantly growing at a CAGR of 7 percent.

Under Street Light National Programme (SLNP), the government aims at replacement of 1.34 crore conventional street lights across the country.