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Recently, Energy Efficiency Services Ltd has said that Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) will enable investments to the tune of 8000 crores over the next 4-5 years.
About Street Light National Programme(SLNP)
- The Programme is an initiative of the Government to promote energy efficiency in the country.
- It was launched in the year 2015 to replace conventional street lights with smart and energy efficient LED street lights across India.
- Under this programme, the Government aims to replace 3.5 crore conventional street lights with energy efficient LED lights.
- Energy Efficiency Services Limited, a Public Energy Services Company under the administration of Ministry of Power, Government of India (GoI) is the implementing agency for SLNP.
Objectives
- Mitigate climate change by implementing energy efficient LED based street lighting
- Reduce energy consumption in lighting which helps DISCOMs to manage peak demand
- Provide a sustainable service model that obviates the need for upfront capital investment as well as additional revenue expenditure to pay for procurement of LED lights
- Enhance municipal services at no upfront capital cost of municipalities
Role of EESL
- EESL replaces the conventional street lights with LEDs at its own costs (without any need for municipalities to invest) and the consequent reduction in energy and maintenance cost of the municipality is used to repay EESL over a period of time.
- The contracts that EESL enters into with municipalities are typically of 7 years duration where it not only guarantees a minimum energy saving (of-typically 50%) but also provides free replacements and maintenance of lights at no additional cost to the municipality.
- EESL is also implementing LED Street lighting projects in Gram Panchayats on the same service model as the SLNP for municipalities with the objective to promote the use of efficient lighting in rural areas.
What is the current status of the programme?
Urban Local bodies: Till date, EESL has installed over 1.09 crore LED street lights in ULBs and Gram Panchayats across India. This has resulted in estimated energy savings of 7.34 billion kWh per year with avoided peak demand of 1,222 MW, GHG emission reduction of 5.05 million t CO2 per year and estimated annual monetary savings of INR 5,130 crore in electricity bills of municipalities.
Rural areas: So far, EESL has installed 26 lakh LED street lights in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Goa and Telangana.
