India’s central government laid out the plan of replacing conventional lights with LED lights with an aim to light up India with energy-efficient LED bulbs by the end of 2018. Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines, termed it a “massive energy efficiency mission.” The scheme of LED lighting comes along with advantages like decreased maintenance cost, longer life, more flexibility and easier handling. The scheme will also focus on not only street lights but also on replacing household bulbs with LEDs.
Already 45.9 million LED bulbs have been distributed to households under the Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme. The aim is to replace all the household lights with LED bulbs as well. After an installation of 71 crore (710 million) conventional bulbs, a mark of saving of 100 billion units of electricity will be reached.
The Ministry of Urban Development has already set out orders to the state Governments across the country to replace all street lights with LED bulbs, which give better illumination with less energy consumption. Through this massive energy efficiency mission the Government has set a target to distribute millions of LED bulbs through the newly formed state-run company Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. India has over 35 million street lights that produce a total demand of 3,400 MW. With LED bulbs, this huge demand can be curbed down upon and brought 1,400 MW. It means, saving 9000 million kWh of electricity annually.
The National Programme for LED-based Home and Street Lighting was launched by Prime Minister Modi in January 2015. He chalked out a plan to cover 100 cities by March 2016, and the ones remaining by March 2019. This would mean, targeting replacement of 770 million bulbs and 35 million street lights.
