AP's 'LED' revolution drops prices by 300%

Hyderabad, July 22 (INN): The continuous and sustained efforts of Andhra Pradesh Government in implementation of Energy Efficiency & Energy Conservation (EE&EC) programmes in the State in a big way through State Energy Conservation Mission (SECM), have resulted in drastic reduction of LED bulb price by around 300% in short duration of 10 months.

This significant development will immensely help the consumers as well as the DISCOMs in reducing the project cost. Enthused with this major event of price reduction of LEDs which helps for achieving the desired goals in energy savings of 20-24%, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has issued instructions to the administrative machinery to adopt a special mechanism and to take up short term and long term programmes to make Andhra Pradesh as the most energy efficient state in India and also incandescent free state. He has also specifically directed that the 2nd phase of DELP scheme i.e. distribution of around 150 lakhs LED bulbs to domestic consumers in remaining 9 districts & installation of remaining 4.5 lakh LED street lights in all Corporations and Municipalities by March 2016.

Disclosing the above details, Ajay Jain, Secretary (Energy, I&I) & Vice-Chairman/APSECM, who is camping at Rajahmundry in connection with cabinet meeting, in a teleconference with top officers of power sector, said that during the tenders called for implementation of 2nd phase of DELP by EESL, wherein the Govt. of AP has decided to distribute 9Watts LED bulbs instead of 7 Watts bulbs to around 150 lakh consumers, the price of 9W LED bulbs realised was just Rs.72.40/- which is a national record of LED market. The Secretary specifically thanked Chairman/APERC G Bhavani Prasad and Members of APERC P Raghu and P Rammohan for their proactive role in monitoring of DELP prices and giving conditional approval from APERC subject to reduction of 9Watt LED bulb price below Rs.100/-.

In the meanwhile, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), MoP and Energy Efficiency Service Limited (EESL) in a communication to Chief Secretary and Chairman of SECM Dr. IYR Krishna Rao, has assured to support the Govt. of AP in big way both in Technical and Financial matters. The top brass of Ministry of Power also informed the Chief Secretary to organise global conference on Energy Efficiency at Vizag, said Ajay Jain.

The MD/EESL, Govt. of India, Saurabh Kumar who has played a major role in implementing LED bulb distribution and LED Street lighting programme, in a telephonic interaction with the Secretary (Energy, I&I) and special communication to SECM has stated that the Govt. of AP is doing a great service to the Nation in Energy Conservation front. As a result of visionary leadership of the Chief Minister, in Domestic LED project, the prices of bulk procurement of LED Bulbs has reached to a lowest level of just Rs 72 per Bulb when compared to around Rs 320/Bulb, when the scheme was first contemplated in Puduchery around 18 months ago. The price of 7W LED bulb & 9W LED bulb in the open market is Rs.400 & Rs.650 respectively.

While thanking the Govt. of India, MD/EESL and also the consumers for their immense support for LED revolution in AP Ajay Jain further informed that Energy efficiency activities of AP will be immensely useful for effective implementation of 24X7 (Power for All) Scheme as well as protecting natural resources and reducing the green gas house emissions. The CMD/APTRANSCO & MD/APGENCO K Vijayanand, Advisor, Energy K Ranganatham CMDs/DISCOMs R. Mutyalaraju and H.Y. Dora participated in the tele-conference.