The Hindu : New Delhi News : Automatic switching system for streetlights coming

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 04, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Automatic switching system for streetlights coming

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

System would ensure no wastage of power

NEW DELHI: With over 50 MW of electricity being consumed by streetlights in Delhi every hour and each hour of extra operations resulting in a loss of 50,000 units of power, installation of a programmable logic controller (PLC) and a timer-based system with a global system of mobile communication (GSM) automatic switching system has been proposed to be installed in Delhi.

The system would ensure that there is no wastage of power when it comes to operations of streetlights and instead of manual switching, the lights would be operated from a centralised control room which would treat them all in groups. The savings, as per sources, would be enormous as they be almost equivalent to the total power produced by the Rajghat Power Plant of around 60 MW -- although its installed capacity is 135 MW.

As the switching operations of all the points at present are manual, and this causes loss of energy due to long switching activities -- both in the morning and the evenings -- the new mechanism -- for which a proposal has been sent by BSES to the Delhi Government and which is actively under consideration -- would seek to eliminate the losses.

The problem in the case of Delhi is that while the streetlights are owned by road owing agencies namely Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Public Works Department and Delhi Development Authority, the role of the discoms is limited to their maintenance and supply of electricity. In the BSES' licensed areas, MCD has 2.5 lakh streetlight points, PWD 16,000 and DDA 5,000 points. In addition, MCD also maintains over 25,000 semi high mast lights.

A key difference which has emerged in the maintenance and operations of these lights since privatisation of power has been their glowing efficiency. While before privatisation it was only around 50 per cent, BSES has taken that level to a high of 98.5 per cent through revamping of the defunct lamps, cables, essential connectors and switches. The idea is improve the actual lux or illumination to the desired level of 30 lux on normal roads and 50 lux at intersections.

Moreover, by switching over to sodium lights all over its licensed area -- from the earlier mix of mercury and metal halides -- the discom has been able to ensure that there is better visibility on the roads as the sodium lights do not attract insects during monsoons and so do not block the light from their skeletons. Also there is better visibility for the drivers as these lights penetrate through the fog in winter months improving visibility for better driving conditions thus bring down accidents.

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