Energy Efficiency Services Ltd has initiated a French agency funded project to retrofit 10 lakh conventional street lights with LED lights in Gram Panchayats of 7 districts in Andhra Pradesh.
This is the first project for rural LED street lighting in the country under the Centre’s Street Lighting National Project (SLNP).
This replacement drive in rural areas will help the gram panchayats to cumulatively save approximately 147 million units of electricity annually, and lead to reduction of 12 crore tonnes of CO2.
The entire capital cost of this project is being funded by French Development Agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD). Under the project, EESL has agreed to carry out the entire annual maintenance and warranty replacement in these gram panchayats for a period of 10 years.
Saurabh Kumar, Managing Director, EESL in a statement said, “Andhra Pradesh has always welcomed our initiatives with open arms and has truly spearheaded the energy efficiency movement in the country. We would also like to extend our gratitude to AFD for the financial support in implementation of this project, without which it could not have achieved this scale.”
When installed, these lights will help save ₹88.2 crore per annum.
Andhra Pradesh was the first state to seek assistance from EESL to replace conventional street lighting with LED lighting in Visakhapatnam, after the cyclone Hudhud caused extensive damage.
EESL has installed over 5,90,000 LED street lights in the state. These installations have led to an annual savings of over 7.8 crore kWh, translating into an annual reduction of over 65,000 tonnes of CO2.
Nationally, over 23 lakh conventional street lights have been replaced by LED street lights in 21 states of India.