EESL Mulls Launching LED Scheme in State : Thiruvanthapuram

Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under the Union Power Ministry, is discussing with the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) the possibility of launching an LED scheme in the state modelled on the successful CFL campaign.

 EESL MD  Saurabh Kumar told Express on the sidelines of a workshop here that various financial models were being considered, but the essential idea was to make LEDs cheaply available to the public. “We have just completed the distribution of 6.5 lakh LEDs in Pondicherry. A similar scheme will be launched in Andhra Pradesh on October 2,” he said.

 In Kerala, EESL hopes to launch the scheme for two separate requirements - household lighting and streetlights. During the LDF tenure, the state had successfully implemented the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s Bachat Lamp Yojana (BLY) scheme by replacing energy-guzzler incandescent bulbs with CFLs.

 Light Emitting Diodes (LED) are more energy efficient than Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) and have a far longer life, but the flip side is, they cost more. Still, Keralites are not strangers to LEDs as they have already started finding a place in homes and in street lighting.  Due to the relatively higher cost of CFLs and LEDs, incandescent bulbs continue to shine away in homes. A sample survey by EESL in eight northern districts of Kerala revealed that 40 lakh incandescent bulbs are still in use in households, despite better awareness about energy efficiency. The survey was conducted two months ago.  “We found that 76 pc of the households surveyed consumed less than 120 units a month and they constituted 53 per cent of the consumers overall. And all of them used incandescent bulbs, even though their use is less than that of CFLs. The ratio is something like two incandescent bulbs for three CFLs,” Saurabh Kumar said. EESL concludes that despite awareness about energy efficiency and conservation, price continues to play a decisive role. This situation opens up possibilities for a subsidised LED scheme.



Source : The New Indian Express , 27th Sep 2014