LED light & portal pain Green bulbs to save BMC crores

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has begun its power saving drive by fixing energy efficient light emitting diode (LED) bulbs in lamp posts along city streets.

Energy-saving street lights on the stretch from Sishu Bhavan to Capital Hospital Square at Forest Park in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 16: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has begun its power saving drive by fixing energy efficient light emitting diode (LED) bulbs in lamp posts along city streets.

Fifty-four bulbs were replaced on the stretch between Sishu Bhavan-Capital Hospital Square yesterday.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will fix 20,000 energy-efficient bulbs over the next one-and-a-half years in phases.

Once all the bulbs are replaced, the corporation will save around Rs 1.2 crore on its annual power bill.

At present the city has 36,000 lampposts of which 20,000 will be fixed with LED bulbs in the first phase. While in phase one 14,000 lights will be changed, another 6,000 will be replaced later.

Municipal commissioner Sanjib Kumar Mishra said according to the agreement with a Mumbai-based company contracted for the work, the corporation would save almost 80 per cent on power bills. Of the amount saved on the power bill, the company will get 90 per cent and the civic body 10 per cent.

The deal will be on for 10 years from the completion of the project.

However, the major gain will come from the cost incurred by the civic body as it invests around Rs 3 crore a year in purchasing electrical fittings and bulbs.

The benefit will start accruing once the present bulbs are replaced completely with LED bulbs.

The civic body at present pays Rs 9.8 crore annually on account of power consumption alone. The corporation will pay the private company replacing the existing streetlights Rs 60 lakh per year till the project is complete as the cost of each energy-efficient bulb and its maintenance is Rs 300 per year.

While a common street light uses a 120 watt bulb, the energy saving LEDs will consume 90 watt or less.

The 54 lights on the Sishu Bhavan-Capital Hospital stretch were also fitted with manual dimmer, which can be operated after midnight hours to reduce power consumption.

Once installation of energy-saving lights is done, the system can be made digital and linked to a central server for a particular area or the city.

“This will help in follow-up action as the system can tell which bulb is not working,’’ the commissioner said.

Last year the International Finance Corporation, a sister concern of the World Bank, had signed an agreement to ensure energy-efficient lighting in the state capital.

The International Finance Corporation is taking a consultancy fee of $5,000 a year from the corporation.

The organisation did the preliminary survey of street lights in the city and helped in selecting the agency to execute the project.

Asked about the corporations’s next step after it saves on energy bills, the municipal commissioner said: “When we are going to save Rs 1.2 crore or more a year after the installation of 20,000 LED bulbs, newroad projects will be taken up in the unreachable areas on the outskirts. Areas lacking basic infrastructure will be given priority.”

LED light & portal pain Green bulbs to save BMC crores

London makes LED street light plans; US and UK projects

London will get the country’s largest deployment of LED street lights by 2016 aiming for 40% energy savings, while a project in Rhode Island may change the thinking in the US on lighting ownership, and North East Lincolnshire pursues another significant UK project.

The UK’s largest city will also get the country’s largest deployment of LED street lights by 2016 aiming for 40% energy savings, while a project in Rhode Island may change the thinking in the US on lighting ownership, and North East Lincolnshire pursues another significant UK project.

London-makes-LED-street-light-plans

The Transport for London (TfL) transit authority has announced plans in conjunction with the Mayor’s office to upgrade 35,000 streetlights with LED luminaires and to install a networked adaptive control system to monitor and control the streetlight inventory. North East Lincolnshire is also pursuing a solid-state lighting (SSL) project in the UK targeting 16,500 lights. In the US state of Rhode Island, meanwhile, the activity of a small utility district has shown the cost-saving benefits of LED lighting, and the state is planning a program to aggressively push adoption of SSL.

London SSL plans

The London streetlight project will support Mayor Boris Johnson’s target goals of reaching a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025. “With tens of thousands of lights marking the way on our road network it makes complete sense to focus energy and resources on bringing them up to 21st century standards,” said Johnson. “This is the largest investment to modernize streetlighting on major roads in our capital’s history and will not only cut carbon emissions and save money but it will also lead to even better and safer roads for Londoners.”

The TfL authority has a total inventory of 52,000 lights on the TfL Road Network (TLRN). The plan is to ultimately upgrade all of the lighting over ten years, but the first phase will focus on 35,000 lights that will be replaced by 2016 either as part of normal TfL maintenance or as targeted retrofits that can deliver the most savings. The first phase is projected to reduce emissions by 9700 metric tons annually while saving TfL GBP 1.85 million (about $3 million) — a 40% savings. The initial phase will cost GBP 10.9 million so payback will take a few years.

The savings will be extended in terms of both maintenance costs and maximum energy efficiency by a lighting network with controls and what TfL terms a Central Management System (CMS). TfL will use the system to set light levels to the minimum safe levels based on traffic and pedestrian activity, and to automatically detect required maintenance.

TfL said that it has already awarded a contract to supply the CMS to Harvard Engineering. Moreover, it said that the value of adaptive controls has already been proven out in other UK-based SSL trials. For example, London was one of the cities that took part in the LightSavers consortium trialing LED-based lighting and controls. The TfL also installed LED lighting in the Upper Thames Street tunnel two years back.

Burrillville, Rhode Island

Meanwhile, municipalities large and small continue to pursue SSL streetlight upgrades around the globe. The Pascoag Utility District in Burrillville, Rhode Island, for example, became the first entity in the state to test LEDs on 56 streetlights, according to the Providence Journal. The small project has resulted in a $1710 decrease annually in energy costs and $2535 decrease in maintenance costs.

But the impact of the project could be far greater. In part the success is leading Rhode Island to be the first state to force utilities to allow municipalities to buy energy-efficient streetlights and capitalize on savings. Work in the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission will allow municipalities to get a lower rate for lower-power fixtures, and an even lower rate when adaptive controls are applied. The action could make the state a leader in LED adoption for roadway lighting.

North East Lincolnshire

Back across the pond in the UK, London is far from alone in installing LED lighting. We recently covered a project in Bath involving LEDs installed on the A4 roadway. Moreover, the Yorkshire Post recently reported that the North East Lincolnshire Council was launching a project involving 16,500 streetlights.

The upfront cost of the project will be GBP 8.2 million that will be spent over the next two years. But the Council pointed to a combination of energy savings, safer roads, and reduced light pollution as justification for the expense.

London makes LED street light plans; US and UK projects