Electricity consumption in Indian homes a journey towards UJALA

BY- Aditya Chunekar

Lighting is essentially the most elementary use of electrical energy at home. Lighting's proportion within the overall residential electrical energy consumption is estimated to be within the 18%- 27% range. In 2013, a few billion-and-a -half lighting devices were sold in India; half of them being incandescent bulbs adopted by means of CFLs (31%), tubelights (16%) and a negligible proportion of LED bulbs.

The following yr, the federal government launched a programme to promote LED bulbs in Indian families and later named it UJALA (Unnat Jyoti by means of Affordable LEDs for All). This is as a result of LED bulbs devour much less electrical energy, last more, and don't include mercury. The programme, arguably the world's greatest, has sold over 27 crore LED bulbs and not using a subsidy from the federal government. How did the programme exchange India's lighting trade and client behaviour? What part of programme design labored and what will also be progressed? Answers to these questions can toughen long run programmes designed to better power potency in India.

Innovative programme: Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a public sector corporate, is accountable for imposing the UJALA programme. The corporate bought LED bulbs in bulk from producers thru multiple rounds of competitive bidding. The huge volumes and confident gross sales incentivised the producers to drop the bidding value from Rs 310 in line with LED bulb within the first round to as little as Rs 38 in later rounds. EESL sold those bulbs to customers thru contract distributors in co-ordination with the native electrical energy distribution companies (discoms), bypassing the retail provide chain and further bringing down the final distribution value. As a end result, the current value of LED bulbs beneath UJALA is Rs 70, about half the cost of the LED bulbs to be had within the stores. Yet, there is no subsidy from the federal government or the discoms. EESL additionally carried out cutting edge advertising campaigns to create public awareness.


Sales up, prices down: The UJALA programme remodeled the LED lighting trade in India. Demand for LED bulbs has long past up by means of 50 times within the 3 years since 2014, whilst the retail market value (for bulbs sold past UJALA) has dropped to a third. The fall in prices will also be attributed to the economies of scale accomplished because of considerable demand advent by means of the UJALA programme, in step with the worldwide development of relief in prices of the LED chips. India's LED bulb manufacturing capacity has additionally grown substantially, with about 176 registered manufacturing devices in India.


Incandescent bulbs:
The higher demand for LED bulbs turns out to exchange the demand for CFLs instead of incandescent bulbs. Around 810 million incandescent bulbs were sold in 2016, a 5% drop over previous yr's sale, while the gross sales of CFLs have dropped by means of a third since their height in 2013. The surveys corroborate this development as we find that a considerably huge percentage of the UJALA LED bulbs were used to exchange CFLs, adopted by means of incandescent bulbs and tubelights. The more the folks replace CFLs with LEDs, lesser the savings which might be in fact learned. The samples of families in Pune were dispensed across different revenue classes. A normal LED bulb stored 2.5 times more in a low-income household in comparison to a highincome household. This makes a case for programme to focus more on low-income families.


Bulb quality necessary: Our surveys foundthat 2% of LED bulbs failed in Pune inside of a yr since the programme's launch, whilst 14% of the LED bulbs failed in Puducherry 3 years after the launch. The bulbs sold in Pune carried a Three-year guaranty, whilst the bulbs sold in Puducherry carried a guaranty of 8 years. However, only a few families were given their faulty bulbs replaced. Lower expectancies from a central authority programme and better tolerance levels for faults in low cost LED bulbs, lack of understanding about guaranty, and hassles in process were cited as causes for now not replacing the faulty bulbs beneath guaranty. To conclude, UJALA has created a large and sustainable marketplace for LED bulbs in India the usage of the no-subsidy, bulk procurement fashion. Demand for LED bulbs has higher manifold and the retail market value (for the LED bulbs sold past UJALA) has dropped by means of a third. It has additionally created a significant awareness about LED bulbs, further contributing to expanding demand. Going forward, EESL can be certain that stricter monitoring and analysis of the programme. It can also focus on low-income families and small business establishments which might be nonetheless buying incandescent bulbs.




Electricity consumption in Indian homes a journey towards UJALA Electricity consumption in Indian homes a journey towards UJALA Reviewed by Kailash on November 18, 2017 Rating: 5
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