CFL project in UN books

The world’s biggest scheme to reduce carbon emissions by selling Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) to individual households has now got United Nations’ recognition.

Updated on: May 1, 2010, 23:46:35 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The world’s biggest scheme to reduce carbon emissions by selling Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) to individual households has now got United Nations’ recognition.

A CFL lamp consumes one-fifth of the electricity — the biggest carbon emitting sector — consumed by traditional incandescent lamp.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s (BEE) Bachat Lamp Yojana (BLY) got registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) this week. This means individual players — private or state government — won’t have to register projects with the UNFCCC.

Private players would be able to earn carbon credit for each CFL they sell by registering with BEE, which will notify the total credits earned to the UN. A credit is equal to a tonne of carbon emission saved.

Registration with BEE will enable CFL distributors to sell the lamp for Rs 15 a piece and recover the remaining cost by selling the credits in the international market. The rate for a carbon credit is $15.

“It is a win-win situation for private players and consumers,” said Ajay Mathur director General, BEE. Penetration of CFL at present is less than 10 per cent because of its high price, said Mathur.

In 2010-11, the government estimates to save 750 MW of power. Domestic appliances and lighting sector accounts for almost 22 per cent of the total electricity demand in India.It is estimated that there are over 400 million light points in India lighted using Incandescent Lamps. ICLs are extremely energy in-efficient, with just 5 per cent of the electricity input converted to light.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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