Andhra Pradesh - Tirupati   

LED lights replace sodium vapour lamps

— Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Shining bright: A view of the newly-installed LED lamp in Tirupati.

TIRUPATI: In an attempt to save power, the Tirupati Municipal Corporation and Non-Conventional Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NEDCAP) have joined hands to replace the High Pressure Sodium Vapour (HPSV) lamps with LED-based lamps in the city. While the former consumes a whopping 150W, the LED lamps roughly consume a mere 54W.

The pilot project implemented on the busy stretch between Nalugukalla Mandapam and Railway Station on G. Car Street is said to be the first attempt by a civic body in the State. The lamps provided by Innovlite (India) Private Limited were installed on five lamp posts. Each lamp, having a set of 36 Light Emitting Diodes (LED), consumes 54W of power.

The result has proved to be more than encouraging. All the five lamps put together consumed a mere 3.2 units a day burning for 12 hours.

This is in sharp contrast to the 150W (which touches 180W while burning) consumed by each of the five HPSV lamps, gobbling up a whopping 10.8 units of power per day. In effect, the energy saving is found to be to the tune of 71 per cent.

Also, in HPSV lamps, 85 per cent of the power converts into heat and escapes into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, while it is only 75 per cent of 54W in case of the LEDs.

Another advantage with the LED lamp is its extended life. It burns for over 60,000 hours and thus obviates the need for frequent replacement of bulbs.

“The LED lamps are robust and resisitant to thermal shocks and vibrations, contain no hazardous material like mercury, no infrared or ultraviolet ray in beam output, low DC voltage operation and the list goes on,” C.B. Jagadeeswara Reddy, district manager of NEDCAP told The Hindu.

The power-starved Bangalore city is also learnt to be keen on implementing this project.

However, the catch is that the LED lamps emit only 80 per cent of the HPSV lamp’s luminescence, thus falling short of the civic body’s expectations by a whisker. To overcome this hiccup, the NEDCAP is working out the possibility of taking the number of LEDs on the panel from 36 to 42.

With this novel initiative, the Municipal Corporation not only saves on power front, but also minimises the State’s dependence on the power grid.

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