Lower power consumption, less maintenance and good ergonomic quality of the light, are some of the added benefits
By Dilin Anand
Tuesday, December 10, 2012: One of the major perceived negatives of going in for LED lights is their huge initial costs compared to conventional bulbs and tubes. In most cases, the cost of installing LED lighting is almost double than that of conventional lighting solutions. However, this is a flawed argument. By going in for LED based solutions power consumption is reduced drastically.
KisaN Mouldings Ltd, which has carved a niche for itself in the field of pipes and fittings, has more than nine manufacturing plants across India. Recently, KisaN Mouldings has set up a new factory at Kora, Tumkur, Karnataka. The management had noticed that the conventional tubelights consumed a huge amount of electricity and involved higher maintenance costs. Hence, the company decided to try the energy saving LED lights for its production set-up to cut costs, reduce its dependence on backup power systems (such as diesel generators, UPS systems, etc), and at the same time become eco-friendly by reducing the carbon emissions from lighting.
Well designed LED lights are expected to last for 50,000 to 100,000 burning hours, and coupling these with smart controls can extend life spans even further. Conventional lights, on the other hand, have to be replaced once every 18 months (in case of continuous 24-hour usage).
Promptec’s lighting solution
Promptec, a pioneer and industry leader in LED lighting, solar lighting and power electronics solutions, successfully completed the LED lighting installations for KisaN Mouldings Ltd. Promptec installed 210 sets of LED lights, each with 28 Wx2, and 12 units of LED lights with 80 W. Lux levels varying uniformly from 170 to 140 were provided for certain areas, and lux levels varying uniformly from 300 to 500 were provided for the machines.
Return on investment
The investment required for the conventional lights would have been Rs 747,000, but for the LED lights the company had to pay Rs 1,304,400. Yet, this additional investment of Rs 557,400 was recovered by KisaN in eight months. Taking the cost of electricity per unit as Rs 7, the first year’s electricity bills for conventional bulbs would have been Rs 1,782,829, assuming a consumption of 710 units per day. For LED lights, these bills were Rs 846,236 per annum at a consumption of 331 units per day, as the power consumed was almost 50 per cent lower than conventional lights. Hence, the company saved Rs 936,593 on power bills in the first year alone.
This meant that KisaN not only recovered the additional investment of Rs 557,400 in the first year itself, but was also able to save an additional Rs 379,193. Maintenance charges, too, are very low in the first year in the case of LED lights. While annual maintenance costs for conventional lights are around Rs 52,500, maintenance of LED lights costs only Rs 10,500 per annum.
The impact
The adoption of LED lights at the Tumkur unit of KisaN resulted in a reduction of 133,799kWh being consumed from the grid. This helped to reduce 104 tonnes of carbon emissions per year and saved the company Rs 936,000 annually (for 24-hour usage). With the power crisis in Karnataka, the load on the generator or back-up systems was reduced to less than half with LED lights.
Other key advantages of LED lights include a reduction in the number of lights required which lowers costs even further, a reduction in the length and gauge of the copper cable used, and reduction in carbon emissions, no mercury (hazardous) waste released into the environment.
Electronics Bazaar, South Asia’s No.1 Electronics B2B magazine
