Municipal Streetlight – A National Imperative for Demand Side Management

Municipalities ( Also called Urban Local Bodies-ULB)share about 10% of total electricity consumed in cities in India. It is estimated that the electricity bills are as high as 60% of the total expenditure of municipalities. Various studies and estimates by BEE, TERI, CII, ECLEI, USAID, etc. indicate that it is possible to improve the energy efficiency by at least 20 to 25%. A large number cities (over 4000), the growing urban population (28% in 2001 expected to grow to 38% by 2026), ever growing deficit for electricity and the whopping energy bills compel initiatives to reduce energy consumption. These initiatives thus can reduce energy bills and have an impact on the fiscal situation of municipal bodies.

Electricity consumption in municipal sector is increasing steadily over the last few years. Demand Side Management can be an effective mean to address growing gap between power  supply  and  demand. Municipal corporations must not  only  consider  financial  and  resource security benefit from DSM measures, but also need to recognize impact on environment created by burning of fossil fuels. Municipal bodies often lack sufficient institutional capacity to develop practical approach for maximizing efficiency even after recognizing the potential benefits. Urban  Local Bodies  (ULBs)  have to  develop  proper approach  &  proper  model  to  identify  energy  efficiency  projects  & implementation  strategy for  efficient  energy management. The goal of energy management must be on provision of services like drinking water &street lights with the least cost and least environmental effect.

Major barriers to Demand Side Management in Urban Local Bodies

Following are the main barriers to improvement of energy efficiency in Indian municipal sector:

• Inefficient data on existing energy usage pattern
• Absence of Energy Management Cell within municipal bodies.
• Lack of awareness on technologies for improving energy efficiency (EE).
• Limited availability of capital for investing in EE.
• Poor credit rating of many municipalities that makes financing of EE difficult, especially with the private sector Involvement.
• Management priorities do not focus on EE as other service provisions (health & infrastructure) take precedence.

Energy Efficiency Scenario in ULBs (2007-12).

BEE carried out a Situational Analysis Survey of  the Municipal sector from 2007-2011 covering  23  states/UTs. Total population of ULBs under Municipal Demand Side Management is 1029.47 lakh which cover 12411.18 square kilometers across 171 cities. Situational Analysis Survey of current ongoing initiatives on energy efficiency covers 23 states/UTs. The findings across all the 171 cities across 23 states suggest that only 9 cities had exclusive energy cell. Other Municipal’s region neither had energy cells nor having any medium for collection of data for improvement of energy efficiency. Consequent to this, no energy efficiency could be initiated and instigation of ULBs to adopt energy efficiency measures had no impact. The situational analysis report only suggested the number of buildings, pumps and streetlights, which were available in the Municipalities. The summary findings are given in Figure 1.

Based on these initial assumptions, the situational survey indicated the energy saving potential during the 11th Plan and during the 12th Plan is given in the Table-1.The Simple Payback period (SPP) ranges from 2.5 to three years, but would increase if other modalities such as performance contracting /ESCO model is adopted.

Table-1.

Approach for Mu DSM Projects

During the process of audit carried out by BEE, over the said period, it was noted that over 50 different types of fixtures with varying energy consumption exist in municipalities. There is greater need for rationalization of fixtures in the Street-lighting area. Not only this will add to energy savings, but will also bring down inventory carrying costs at the municipalities. The above number also brings the debate of standardization in the field of Street lighting ( Alternatively Road lighting as per the BIS Standard).

Purpose of Road Lighting

In road and street lighting following aspects are considered:

a)       Energy saving through selection of efficient lamp technologies and design practices

b)       Capital cost saving using proper spacing and placement.

c)       Maintenance cost saving using lamps with longer life and optimum spacing.

d)       Reduced glare and improved visibility by careful selection of luminaries and lamps.

e)       Improved sense of security by selection of efficient system and incorporating proper design. This can make an area appear safer and more secure.

f)        Improved sense of economic development of communities.

g)        Improved safety of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, improved traffic guidance and a pleasant environment.

Quality Criteria of Road-lighting

The quality of lighting should meet the requirements of road users from their individual angle. The users being drivers and pedestrians, in practice, the requirements of the drivers are more stringent. However, it is the “principles of vision” which are the guiding factors in public lighting. Hence, the function of a good road lighting installation is to provide good visual performance and visual comfort to the road users.

The most important quality criteria to be considered in road lighting are:

a)      Luminance level

b)      Illuminance level

c)      Illuminance uniformity

d)      Degree of glare limitation

e)      Visual guidance.

BIS: 1944 (Part 1) and (Part 2):1970,  Code of practice for lighting of public thoroughfare: Part 1 and 2 for main and secondary roads (Group A and B) defines the various aspects of the lighting standards.This Part of the codegenerally covers all aspects of road lighting including normal street lighting, associated with service roads,pedestrian pathway and the road junctions, excluding the traffic signals or painted boards.

As per the standard, guidance have been provided in terms of lighting parameters on various classifications ofroads. The standard defines the limits on Luminance, uniformity and also lighting recommendation for different road types.

Issues on Road Lighting :

While the BIS standard specifies the above ratios, , the lighting façade of the cities were dictated more by the personal likings of the City dwellers and not by Standards. however over the years lighting guidelines are not enforced by any regulatory authority, it is common for municipalities to be unaware of the standards,and many fail to comply.

The most common reasons for inefficient street lightingsystems in municipalities are:

• Selection of inefficient luminaires
• Personal preferences on selection of luminaires by citizen
• Poor design and installation
• Poor power quality
• Poor operation and maintenance practices

There is tremendous potential to improve lighting qualitywhile reducing energy use, costs, and greenhouse gasemissions, and the Indian Standard though old provides a means to look at the appropriate technology interventions.

Street Lighting Technology

The Indian standard Suggest appropriate Lighting technologies, yet, the given below table Captures the essence of the effect of efficient lighting.

Table-2

Currently, As seen from the Table 1, the focus of the lighting is on volume of light rather than quality of light and need to change. This will bring a dramatic change in the cities in terms of energy efficiency and conservation measures.

Studies have already proved that the LED streetlights have better efficacy in terms of life, energy savings and overall a better visibility on road because of their better CRI.

Energy Efficiency Process:

Table 1 indicates that the Simple Payback period in energy efficiency measures ranges from 2.5 to 3 years. Considering that the Standard LED lamp has been defined with a life of over 24000 hrs in the Indian Standard, and with 12 hrs operations, it is expected that a luminaire will last for over 5 years ( 24000/4380 =5.48 years). However, change in technology and lumen depreciation of the lamp, Manufactures are encouraged to give atleast 3-4 years of warranty on the product. This will create a market for LED streetlights and the cost economics of the streetlight in comparison to the conventional Lamps will outweigh them both on energy savings as well as life. Therefore, there is a every likelihood that the ESCO model with some defined objectives particularly, based on energy saving calculations and one time replacement cost will change the market completely.  Certain key interventions are required also at the Municipality end:

(1) Build Infrastructure & Energy Management Skills

• Designate the Energy Manager or Project In charge and build a Team
• Set goals and develop strategies
• Educate and involve employees in efficiency efforts
• Generate a pool of technical know how to identify and implement projects
• Create a targeted budget for efficiency improvement

(2) Mapping of Systems & process

• Carry of Detailed Energy audits.
• Create metering and monitoring system
• Develop a base line of energy use
• Develop Internal Norms & standard
• External Benchmarking

(3) Development of Projects

• loss identification in Street-lighting,
• Concept design and basic engineering, technical analysis, preliminary cost benefit analysis, base line, monitoring & verification plan proposal for each of the identified projects.
• Selection of vendors
• Development of Performance Contracts
• Detailed study of equipments/technology benefits
• Project risks and finalizing the best investment.

(4)Cost Benefit & Financial analysis & Prioritization.

(5) Installations & Implementations of Energy Conservation Measure

• Equipment Specifications & Sizing
• Impact of the project on other parts of the system
• Maintenance scheduling & accounting for depreciations
• Prioritization in accordance with (Overall Capital Investment Needed, Technical Constraints, Company’s finance resources, Available financing etc.)

(6) Grants from Government Agencies: Several Grants from government is available to promote energy efficiency in various sectors. As per Energy Conservation Act 2001, State government shall constitute a fund to be called the state energy conservation fund for the purpose of promotion of efficient use of energy and its conservation within the state.

(7) Project funding

• Internal Funding: ULB shall invest its own money into energy conservation project with no or little external support.
• External Loans: ULB shall take a loan from external agencies to execute energy conservation project. Several external agencies are providing loans for execution of energy efficiency project.
• Financing through ESCO Models: An energy saving company (ESCO) is a company that is engaged in developing, installing and financing performance based project aimed at energy efficiency or load reduction of facilities owned/operated by customers. For an energy efficiency project, an ESCO may offers the following services:

• Energy Audit & formulating detailed energy audit report
• Implementation of Energy Efficiency project ( Includes undertaking implementation & project  monitoring)
• Procurement of Street-lights to be installed
• Arranging finance for the project in select cases
• Their maintenance and operations

If the ULB lacks the needed financial resources as well as technical capacity to implement an energy efficiency project, Financing through ESCO Model is a better option.

Hypothetical Example of replacement of a Streetlight project:

This clearly indicates that a simple payback of 3.29 years is possible and which will get further reduced as large integration on Street-lighting projects will bring down the prices considerably. In India over 37 million Streetlights in the Municipal sector have the potential of savings electricity and providing much needed impetus to Energy Efficiency.