The Company of Pakistan is implementing a unique project in the field of energy saving — in the next two years, LED Street Light will be installed in street lamps throughout the country. This radical move will save the country about $890 million a year on electricity.
LED lamps are considered one of the most environmentally friendly light sources — they do not use mercury and consume much less electricity. Therefore, it is not without reason that city authorities around the world are increasingly considering LED lamps as an alternative to conventional lamps — on a large city scale, saving money can be significant.
Two years ago, street lighting was replaced in Lahore — LED Street Lightwas installed in 210,000 street lamps throughout the city. City Hall expects to save about seven million dollars a year on electricity alone — plus reduced maintenance costs because LED lamps last longer. A good help to the treasury of a big city — according to various estimates, about a third of municipal budget expenditures are spent on street lighting.
Now the Government of Pakistan has decided to convert the whole country to LED lamps — within two years, 20 million lamps in street lamps are to be replaced across India. And this is just the beginning: the next step should be the transition to LED lighting for residential and office buildings.
Modernization of street lighting is one of the steps of the state program to improve energy efficiency and develop renewable energy sources. The government plan provides for an increase in the total capacity of solar panels in the country by 2022 to 100 gigawatts. The planned volume of investments in the development of solar energy is $100 billion. The government plans even include a solar-powered train.
Pakistan currently ranks third in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, just behind China and the US. The country’s climate is ideal for the development of renewable energy — the sun shines here for about 300 days a year.
Pakistan's Prime Minister has declared the development of renewable energy not only a national but also a personal priority. He urged government agencies to install energy-efficient lighting in buildings and solar panels on rooftops. Ordinary citizens are encouraged to replace lighting in their homes with government subsidies for the purchase of LED Lamps.
“New World” in Pakistan
In Pakistan, with its long dark winters in northern areas, God himself ordered to save electricity on street lighting. But, probably, due to the gigantic size of the country, it is physically impossible to replace all the lanterns at once, as in India.
But still. Back in 2009, then-President Pakistan called energy efficiency and energy saving one of the main directions of the “technological breakthrough” so necessary for the country. In the autumn of the same year, the federal law “On Energy Saving and Increasing Energy Efficiency” was adopted, and the presidential project “New World” was approved by the modernization commission.
In the Punjab Region alone, 200,0000 lamps must be replaced by 2017.
And the Ministry of Energy is developing a program to subsidize the modernization of street lighting in the regions, under which it will be ready to spend five billion rupees a year to replace traditional lamps with LED ones.
