"This(LED lights on richmond road) has minimised monthly electricity bill of the BBMP by Rs 23,776. In a year, the total savings will be Rs 2.85 lakh" 

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/49905/leds-cut-bbmp-power-bill.html

Glad to know that some things are going right atleast..

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"This has minimised monthly electricity bill of the BBMP by Rs 23,776. In a year, the total savings will be Rs 2.85 lakh.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency, based in Delhi, had taken up the project on a pilot basis in association with the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited in Bangalore.
The total money spent on the project is Rs 14 lakh."

Looking at the numbers given in the report, to recover the 14 lakh investment, these LEDs need to last 5 years. Taking even the capital investment costs into consideration, these should last 7-8 years for these to be really cost effective. I dont believe that these are cost effective.

Yes, I do undertand that its cost is not all about money. That they consume so much lesser electricity is a 'cost saved' on environment. But for these to become really ubiquitous and people taking to LEDs at their homes and businesses, it needs to make lot more economic sense than just eco-sense.

We have had the CFLs being introduced almost a decade back. Bescom also planned to sell them at subsidised rates. Despite all that, they still dont sell like the good old incandescent bulbs.

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Europe jumped the gun to shut down sales/manufactuing of incandecent bulbs ..and planned to replace with CFL..however there are some issues with CFL..

• High level of mercury in CFL
• Cost constraints
• Debatable luminous intensities compared to bulbs

US played different..they wanted to overcome all problems with CFL's to come with the replacement for the bulb..below are their rules set..

 Required metrics for the 60-Watt incandescent LED replacement, as laid out by DOE:

• Energy consumption of less than 10 watts as compared to a 60 Watt incandescent.

•  Output of more than 900 lumens, equivalent to a 60 Watt incandescent light bulb
• Lifetime of more than 25,000 hours, which is 25X greater than a typical incandescent bulb
• Color Rendering Index (CRI) greater than 90, which is a high measure of lighting quality
• Color Temperature between 2700 – 3000 Kelvin, which is “warm” white light comparable to that of incandescent sources

http://www.lighting.philips.com/us_en/press/2009/lprize.php?main=us_en&parent=0&id=us_en_press〈=en

The first submission came from Philips themselves..its the right steps and hopefully the costs will come down too..

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 The total money spent on the project is Rs 14 lakh.

1. The pillars and other construction cost of a street light will need to be put in regardless of whether the bulb was CFL or Incandescent. Even if the bulb cost 50% of the street light your break even period reduces by half.
2. This is LED and not CFL. No mercury as far as I know in LED's
3. Typical lifetimes quoted for LED's are around 50 to 100 times more than an incandescent bulb. At this rate if LED's need 7 to 8 years by your calculation, incandescent bulbs shouldnt be lasting more than a month.
4. 2.85 lakhs for me would be the opportunity cost if incandescents were used. What is the ROI of an incandescent street light? 

Here is a comparison of the various options in illumination and which ones are the most efficient. Turns out other than the favourite sodium vapour, metal halides are good for streets but LEDs are catching up. 

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summane kathe helthare

They make a profit by replacing streetlights often. But LED lights need not be replaced for several years. BBMP has made this system non-functional and is now blaming us -KREDL

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KREDL installed LED lights as a pilot project on this flyover in November 2009. They worked well for about four months and then stopped functioning. 

4 months and 11 lakhs down the drain 

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 As the contractor questions..there is no way all the lights go off at the same time!

Also the reasons given are ridiculous..

1.It is difficult to work as the minute connections require proper lighting arrangements..thats the stupidest reason any electronic engineer can hear as connectors are always better designed and easily replaceable for circuits

2. Positioning the ladder is not so easy...why? dont then have those mobile ladders with saftey  equipment?

3. Then there’s shortage of manpower..summane kathe helthare

Get the right people on it and get it working..but guess there is another set of contractors who would want to scuttle this project as a failure and will do anything for it!

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This is something that probably is a good candidate for pursuing with higher authorities in BBMP (and may be a good praja project too). LED is almost definitely the better option to be replicated city-wide; if the pilot project is killed, sustainability gets thrown out and the status quo remains. Is any praja in contact with BBMP personnel?  Very, very frustrating for the citizen who is always at the receiving end of all the finger-pointing and pass-the-blame games.

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