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LED lights help GHMC save big

Civic body’s power consumption drops by nearly 11 crore units per month and 162.15 million units a year

By S. Sandeep Kumar

Published Date - 1 December 2020, 12:03 AM

LED lights help GHMC save big — GHMC has saved a whopping Rs 212 crore from July 2017 to March 2020 replacing 4.54 lakh conventional streetlights with LED ones.

Hyderabad: Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) Minister KT Rama Rao’s push for green energy and eco-friendly power utilities is bearing fruit, with the LED streetlights installed by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) helping it save a whopping Rs 212.18 crore from July 2017 to March 2020.

The move, which has seen the corporation installing over 4.54 lakh LED streetlights so far, had the civic body’s power consumption dropping by nearly 11 crore units per month and 162.15 million units a year. More importantly, this exercise has helped in reducing the emission of carbon dioxide by 1,29,719 tonnes annually.

The project is being taken up in association with Energy Efficiency Services Limited, and the GHMC is the first municipal corporation in the country to take up the gigantic task of replacing 4.54 lakh conventional streetlights with the LED ones spending Rs 217.12 crore. The move is expected to aid in reducing power consumption by 55 per cent. As per the agreement, EESL will take up the maintenance and operation of LED streetlights for seven years.

In April 2019, a 96 per cent glowing rate was recorded, aiding in the reduction of 55 per cent power consumption compared to the glowing rate of 80 per cent recorded in April 2017. As many as 24,862 control switches have been fixed to operate 4.60 lakh streetlights.

Equipped with auto timers, these switches will turn on automatically after sunset and turn off after sunrise through photo sensors. If anyone tries to tamper with the switchboards or turn off the lights deliberately with ulterior motives, an alert is sent to officials.

Last year, the municipal corporation conducted a survey and identified 20,450 defunct streetlights. All of them were replaced with new ones besides fixing the snags in the lines, switches and spares. During the survey, 26,000 streetlights were randomly picked up to be monitored under the command control switch system.

Of these, 25,860 streetlights were found to be functioning properly, resulting in the 98 per cent glowing rate. The same was also checked with elected public representatives in different areas and GHMC officials too obtained their certification over the functioning of streetlights.