Launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on January 5, 2015, the Government of India’s zero subsidy UnnatJyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) and Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) marks their sixth anniversary on 5th January.

Highlights

    • Both the programmes are being implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power, Government of India since their inception.

    • UJALA brought a market transformation in energy efficiency sector. The switch from inefficient incandescent bulbs to LEDs is helping families reduce their electricity bills while also enabling them to access better brightness in homes.

    • With the average household electricity bills down by 15 per cent, the annual energy saving is equivalent to a week’s average earning.

    • Under UJALA, EESL has distributed over 36.69 crore LED bulbs across India.

    • This has resulted in estimated energy savings of 47.65 billion kWh per year with avoided peak demand of 9,540 MW and estimated GHG emission reduction of 38.59 million tonnes CO2 per year.

    • Additionally, over 72 lakh LED tube lights and over 23 lakh energy efficient fans have also been distributed at affordable price under this programme.

    • The domestic LED market has grown significantly beyond the UJALA programme, with the industry selling over 1.15 billion LEDs, far exceeding the UJALA programme’s target of 700 million LED units.

    • With SLNP, EESL has installed about 1.14 crore LED streetlights across India.

    • This has resulted in an estimated energy savings of 7.67 billion kWh per year with avoided peak demand of 1,280 MW and estimated GHG emission reduction of 5.29 million tonnes CO2 per year.

    • Moreover, there have been an estimated annual monetary savings of INR 5,210 crore in electricity bills of municipalities.

    • EESL has an ambitious plan in the SLNP portfolio for next 4-5 years where it intends to bring investment to the tune of INR 8,000 crores by 2024 by covering entire rural India.

    • It is expected that more than 30 million LED streetlights would be retrofitted/installed by EESL.

    • With the concerted efforts towards building a robust ecosystem for LED lighting in India, these programmes have bagged global awards like the prestigious South Asia Procurement Innovation Award (SAPIA) 2017, and for the innovative use of IT and business results achieved in Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP), it won CIO 100 award in 2019.

    • The highly successful UJALA and SLNP have also bagged the Global Solid State Lighting (SSL) award of excellence for the transformational contribution to the LED sector, Award for High Impact Program for Energy Efficiency – CII National Award for Excellence in Energy Management 2020 and award of excellence at the 10th Elets Knowledge Exchange Summit and Awards 2020.

UJALA

Energy efficiency assumes significance for the nation in the current environment of shortages and concerns over climate change. Lighting itself accounts for about 20% of the total electricity consumption

in India. Hon’ble Prime Minister, on 5th January, 2015 launched the Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) to provide LED bulbs to domestic consumers with a target to replace 770 million incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs by March, 2019.

The programme targets energy efficiency in lighting as it offers enormous opportunity to save energy. LED provides better light output than conventional light and are 88% energy efficient as compared to incandescent bulbs. Further LED lights are 50% energy efficient as compared to CFLs.

SLNP

Under Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP), EESL replaces the conventional street lights with LEDs at its own costs (without any need for municipalities to invest) and the consequent reduction in energy and maintenance cost of the municipality is used to repay EESL over a period of time. The contracts that EESL enters into with municipalities are typically of 7 years’ duration where it not only guarantees a minimum energy saving (of-typically 50%) but also provides free replacements and maintenance of lights at no additional cost to the municipality. 

EESL is also implementing LED Street lighting projects in Gram Panchayats on the same service model as the SLNP for municipalities with the objective to promote the use of efficient lighting in rural areas.

EESL

Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) is a Super Energy Service Company (ESCO), which enables consumers, industries and governments to effectively manage their energy needs through energy efficient technologies.

Founded in 2009, EESL is promoted by Ministry of Power, Government of India as a Joint Venture of four reputed public-sector undertakings NTPC Limited, Power Finance Corporation Limited, REC Limited and POWERGRID Corporation of India Limited.

EESL focuses on solution-driven innovation with no subsidy or capital expenditure (CAPEX). It is able to do so using its Pay-As-You-Save (PAYS) model, which obviates the need for any upfront capital investment by the consumer.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)