India’s plan to upgrade 20 million street lights to LEDs will save an estimated $890M annually

By Kelly Hodgkins Published September 2, 2015

India is preparing to begin one of the most extensive streetlight retrofits in the world, surpassing even Los Angeles’s massive retrofit, which equipped 210,000 streetlights with LEDs in a two-phase process that started in 2013. India’s replacement program is a magnitude larger, removing the existing light bulbs in 20 million streetlights and replacing them with energy efficient LED bulbs. India’s Domestic Efficient Lighting Program (DELP) will take two years to complete and will save the government millions of dollars each year. This effort is part of a larger program initiated by the Ministry of Power to replace conventional light bulbs with LEDs in streetlights, government buildings, and private homes.

The LED retrofit will cost India Rs 2,500 crore ($380 million), but the long-term savings eventually eventually outweigh the upfront cost. The new LED bulbs will consume less energy and have a significantly longer lifespan (50,000 hours) than the existing halogen bulbs (2,000 hours). Because the LED bulbs last longer, India also will save money over time on the labor associated with replacing the bulbs — less frequent changes translates to less money spent on hiring people to install replacement bulbs. When completed, India will reduce its power load by 5 GW, saving almost 10.5 billion kWh every year. All things considered, this DELP program will save the country Rs 5,775 crore ($890 million) annually.

Recommended Videos

Lowering India’s energy consumption has been the focus of the government under India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Besides the streetlight initiative, Modi is requiring all government departments to install energy efficient lighting in their buildings and solar panels on the rooftops for power. Homeowners also are being encouraged to replace conventional bulbs with low power LED lighting via a government-sponsored subsidy program that’ll reduce the cost of LED bulbs.

The quest for energy efficiency has even extended beyond this government program with individual officials exploring how they can lower India’s power consumption. The National Security Advisor reportedly is exploring the idea of using solar panels in his private residence, while several other government leaders are working to provide off-grid power to villages using solar panels.

Former Contributor

Kelly's been writing online for ten years, working at Gizmodo, TUAW, and BGR among others. Living near the White Mountains of…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Anti-surveillance clothing is getting cheaper, but don’t expect an invisibility cloak

Affordable shirts now claim to confuse facial recognition, although their protection depends heavily on the camera and software watching you

Chart, Plot, Adult

Anti-surveillance clothing is starting to look less like an art-school experiment and more like something you could actually wear outside. Shirts designed to confuse facial recognition systems now cost about as much as ordinary streetwear, although buying one won’t make you disappear.

The Guardian reports that designers are using face-like prints, unusual cuts and infrared lights to interfere with computer vision. These techniques target specific weaknesses, so their success depends on what happens to be watching you.

Emerging Tech

This spinning drone hides in plain sight using a visual illusion

This drone doesn't turn invisible. It tricks your brain into thinking it has.

Phantom Twist

For decades, engineers have chased the dream of an invisible drone. The usual approaches have involved transparent materials, camouflage coatings, or complex optical systems that bend light around an object. Researchers at Northwestern University decided to take a completely different route. Instead of hiding the drone itself, they chose to fool the human eye.

The result is Phantom Twist, an experimental drone that spins so rapidly it almost disappears into the background. It's not technically invisible, but to anyone watching, it looks more like a faint blur than a flying machine.

Emerging Tech

This smart knitted fabric can flip switches, count your steps, and even change shape

Grandma's knitting just entered its Iron Man era

Representative Image

For most of us, knitting brings to mind sweaters, scarves, and perhaps an ambitious grandmother determined to make winter more fashionable. Researchers at Harvard University, however, have a far more futuristic vision. They've transformed ordinary knitted fabric into a programmable material capable of changing shape, acting as an electrical switch, sensing movement, and potentially forming the foundation of tomorrow's wearable technology.

The research, published in Advanced Functional Materials by scientists at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), demonstrates how machine-knitted textiles can "snap" between multiple stable shapes without relying on motors or rigid mechanical parts.