The upfront investment in energy-efficient street light systems would reduce the energy and maintenance cost to municipalities
Government of Rajasthan through Department of local Self Government has signed MoU with Energy Efficiency Services limited (EESl), a public sector company under Ministry of Power Government of India in Jaipur. The MoU was signed between Manjit Singh, IAS Principal Secretary and Saurabh Kumar, managing director, EESl. The MoU will facilitate conversion of all the 15 lakhs conventional street lights in the entire state with lED-based smart street light fixtures in a phased manner in two years.
Rajasthan became the first state to sign a statewide MoU for such project implementation in the country. The entire capital cost for conversion of conventional street lights with lEDs, estimated at Rs1,000 crore will be made by EESl and no upfront capital cost will be incurred by the state or UlBs. EESl will be paid over a period of seven years by UlBs through savings in energy and maintenance cost. EESl has given a minimum guarantee energy savings of 50 per cent and adequate penal clauses have been included in case the savings or service level agreements are not performed by EESl. The lED lights will significantly improve the public lighting in the city.
The innovative business model of conversion of conventional street lights with energy efficient lED street lights has the potential of replication as it obviates the need for any capital investment by municipal bodies. The upfront investment in energy-efficient street light systems would reduce the energy and maintenance cost to municipalities and the reduction will be used to pay for the initial investments.
In the state, this project will also lead to substantial savings in energy during peak hours while at the same time enhancing the service quality of the lights. These street lights would be automatically controlled which will lead to additional operational savings to UlBs.The project implementation will commence in the next three months and the entire state will be covered by March, 2017.