Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation lighting department has set a five-year deadline to switch its entire street light system to LED. The monthly savings from electricity bills will then come down to Rs 4 crore from a whopping Rs 15 crore. Half of the city’s three lakh street lighting poles have been converted to LED, bringing down the bill to Rs 9 crore per month.
According to a KMC electricity department official, the transition of street lights from high-pressure sodium lamps to LED has cut down on the civic body’s electricity bill by nearly Rs 70 crore a year. As the civic body continues the initiative to replace the remaining conventional street lights with energy-efficient LEDs, it has the potential to save up to Rs 100 crore per annum by 2029.
The switch to LEDs has also improved street illumination and helped reduce road accidents in certain pockets, a civic official claimed. “Earlier we would install 400 watt sodium vapour lights which have been replaced by 200 watt LED lights. These new lights have better illumination capacity and also help us cut down on the power bills,” said the civic official.
Besides cutting down on electric bills, the KMC electricity department has also saved money on installation of LED lights. “Earlier the cost of installation of sodium vapour light stood at Rs 10,000 per unit. The new age LED light costs Rs 8,000 to install,” said a KMC official adding that the civic body had already invested Rs 150 crore for the switchover of the city’s lighting system. “Given the rate of savings we hope to recover the invested capital in three years. Now we need to change the remaining street lights to ensure complete energy efficiency.”
The transition had started nearly a decade ago when 300 LED lights were first installed in and around the KMC headquarters, including parts of S N Banerjee Road in 2014. But the initiative gained momentum in 2018-19 with installation of LED lights on most of major thoroughfares.
A KMC lighting department official said apart from changing the street lighting system, the KMC brass has also given the nod to switch the lighting system at the headquarters and offices, schools and health centres owned by the civic body in 144 wards. “This initiative has started and we have been slowly switching over to LED lights at our installations,” said a KMC electricity department official.