Energy efficient LED to light rural homes

The government will provide LED lights in place of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) in the subsidized solar powered home lighting systems for rural homes. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Oct 27, 2012, 23:17:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Electricity deprived rural India is set to get world’s most efficient lighting system -- light emitting diode (LED).

The government will provide LED lights in place of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) in the subsidized solar powered home lighting systems for rural homes.

Around 400 million homes in India do not have an electricity connection and the government aims to provide them one by 2017.

In a bid to meet the target, the government will re-launch its most ambitious national programme in January 2013 to provide electricity through decentralized renewable energy sources.

For this, the government has opted for LED home lighting system which is about 80 % more energy efficient than the popular compact fluorescent lamps (CFL).

The home lighting system can run two lights and fans and a television and a mobile charger. Now, the solar lanterns to be provided by the government will have LED instead of CFL.

The CFLs is being provided for solar power home lighting systems under the ministry of new and renewable energy’s off-grid solar energy scheme.

But, the ministry has found that the battery discharge is faster and cost of the system is higher because of CFLs.

“We believe that having LED based solar home lighting system will make it more reliable and reduce the high costs of solar panels,” said Gireesh Pradhan, secretary ministry of new and renewable energy.

The ministry has provided solar based home lighting systems to high altitudes in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir to remote islands in Andaman and Nicobar Islands to about 100 km away from the national capital in Moradabad.

The scheme has two options scheme -- individual home lighting system or for entire village to be run by a committee of villagers.

Ladakh has individual home lighting system whereas Moradabad has one for entire village. “It all depends on the requirement of the beneficiaries,” Pradhan said.

The decision to have LED lights in place of CFL was taken following a huge fall in its prices from around Rs. 1,500 to less than Rs. 500 for a LED light of 10 vatt this year.

The government believes that it move will encourage domestic manufacturers and will led to further reduction in prices.

The government has also decided to buy five lakh LED solar lanterns to be provided at highly subsidized rates to people in rural India.

“The lanterns will come with five year maintenance guarantee,” Pradhan said.

LED over CFL

LED consumes 80% less energy than a CFL

A LED light has a longer life than CFL

Having LED lights means installation of lesser solar panels

With government turning into bulk LED consumer, its market prices are likely to fall further

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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