Kakatiya Energy Systems, Hyderabad's energy management company, announced its new outdoor lighting product, Nature Switch. It is an automated street lighting control system. Nature Switch is an affordable, off-the-shelf alternative to traditional lighting controls. It utilises switching controls coupled with optional auto-dimming technology for HID lamps, it can reduce up to 40% energy usage by reducing the wattage of HID lamps from 100% to 60% of the wattage during non-peak hours on national highways and state roads.
While India is the third largest energy consumer in the world, it has a 9% power deficit. Public lighting consumes approximately 7% of all the power generated in the country, while utilities and local governments struggle to reign in power expenditures.
On average, one 250 watt lamp using Save Switch over the course of one year can save 285 kWh of electricity, or about Rs 1,700 (assuming 7 hours per day at non-peak operation at Rs 6/kWh). There are approximately 2.5 lakh street lights in South Delhi alone. If just one quarter of them utilised Save Switch, the city could save approximately Rs 10.5 crore per year.
"As energy and maintenance costs continue to increase, taking control of outdoor lighting costs, while keeping the lights on, is imperative,” said Lakshman Rao, managing director, Kakatiya Energy Systems.
Nature Switch is designed to automatically adjust to seasonal day length, requiring no manual reset at any point. The precision of the technology is such that even clouds, rain, fog, mist, or shade will not cause the lights to switch on during the day whereas traditional sensor based controls are either on during a portion of the day or off during a portion of the night caused due to judgmental errors of the sensors.
Street lights utilise over 6,000 MW of power in about 5,500 urban areas in India. Due to mounting power bills, many municipalities resort to not operating the street lights at night, which can contribute to higher crime rates.
