The Hindu : Front Page : VMC plumps for power savers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 12, 2005

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VMC plumps for power savers

K. Srimali

IT WORKS: The power saver installed in one of the electricity boxes at Sambamurthy Road in Vijayawada.

VIJAYAWADA: Buoyed by the results of an experiment conducted on one major road in the city, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is gearing up to cut down on its fat power bill by attaching power saving devices to all streetlights.

In July, VMC officials allowed Servomax Precious Electronics Private Limited, a Hyderabad-based power correction and power saving equipment manufacturer, to experimentally attach a power saver to 40 sodium vapour (SV) lamps on Sambamurthy Road. The device was installed in one of the two power boxes on the street from Alanakar to Kotha Vantena.

At the end of the trial that ran for 15 days, electrical engineers of the VMC found that there was a 34 per cent fall in the power consumed by the lamps.

Micro-controller timer

The device, according to director (technical) of the company P. Pavan Kumar, will have a micro-controller timer that allows lights to be switched on and switched off at a particular time, thus saving some power.

More than this, it reduces the losses in the chokes by arresting voltage fluctuations. The 220 volts that the lights require will be supplied without disturbances. The power factor - an important indicator of the effect of the load current on the efficiency of the supply system - also gets increased resulting in less power consumption.

Municipal Commissioner Natarajan Gulzar says that replicating this kind of experiment on a macro scale for the entire city will result in considerable saving to the corporation. "There are many firms that are ready to maintain the devices without any additional burden to the corporation. We've invited expressions of interest," he says.

Even if there is a saving of 30 per cent of the power consumed, it will result in a saving of Rs. 9 lakhs to Rs10 lakh per month, or Rs. 1.08 crores to Rs. 1.2 crores a year, says VMC deputy executive engineer (electrical) B. Srinivasa Rao.

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