The programme will reduce power load by 5 GW, saving 10.5bn kWh every year, translating to savings of £581m.

Twenty million bulbs will be replaced by LEDs at an estimated cost of £250m. The plan was first mooted back in January, but the Minister of Power Piyush Goyal announced on Friday that it would be completed in the next two years. 

LED bulbs have a very long life, almost 50 times more than ordinary bulbs, and 8-10 times that of fluorescent bulbs, and therefore provide both energy and cost savings in the medium term.

Active participation

The domestic sector in Delhi accounts for almost 50% of energy consumption and it is believed that LED based household lights could reduce energy consumption by 88%.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stated back in January that it would take individual effort as well as government planning to achieve these goals. He said: “It is much more difficult to conserve power, than to produce power, because while one producing entity can produce a large quantity of power, it requires the active participation of tens of millions of people to conserve that amount of power.”

In order to increase public participation, power distribution companies across various states will offer subsidies to household consumers to allow them ti purchase LED bulbs well below current market prices.

Clean energy scheme

India has also pledged to install 175GW of renewable energy by 2022, as well as improving the national grid infrastructure.

India is currently expected to increase electricity demand by 60% per annum until 2021, and predicts 75GW of installed solar power could deliver 22% of the required energy generation increase. Modi’s government currently plans to increase solar installations to more 10GW annually.

By switching from regular bulbs to LEDs to amount of solar power needed could lower, meaning the percentage of energy delivered by solar power could actually increase.

Matt Mace

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