The growth rate for LED lamp shipments from 2009 to 2015 is forecast to be 97 per cent (CAGR), while the growth rate from 2015 to 2020 will only be 13 per cent (CAGR). The growth curve that we saw in the LED market has been steeper in 2011 and we expect this trend to continue in the near future.
Despite this encouraging growth, the LED lighting market in India has its share of challenges. LED lighting installations require more designs, spanning the optics, thermal, and electronics domains. LED lamps continue to remain slightly more expensive compared to conventional lamps, given that the current scale of indigenous manufacturing has not reached optimal economies of scale. Another challenge has been the absence of uniform standards for different applications, which is restraining quicker adoption and is resulting in cheaper imports flooding the market.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012: What does 2012 have in store?
The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) recently launched a nationwide LED village lighting campaign, and since its launch the programme has implemented 34 LED based streetlight projects in 23 states for which approximately Rs 90 million has been spent.
According to Frost & Sullivan research, the LED lighting market in India stood at US$ 73.3 million in 2010 and will continue growing at a CAGR of 45.53 per cent till 2015. This growth is attributed to short term drivers coming from streetlight applications and the railway sector. Over 60 per cent of the total demand in 2012 will be from these two applications.
The overall size of the Indian LED lighting market is currently estimated to be over US$ 1 billion, but it is highly fragmented. We at Sujana Energy are looking at garnering around Rs 5 billion in the next three years by deploying a combination of LED and solar applications. We see a bright future ahead for the LED luminaires industry and its affiliated industries, as public acceptance of the technology increases hand in hand with the decrease in prices of LED luminaires.
What needs to be done
One of the major requirements for the LED market in India is to make standardised and high quality products available to meet the demand. Anti-dumping regulations will be welcome to improve local manufacturing and reduce the presence of cheaper imports from across the world. Government bodies like BEE and ISI are actively working towards LED lighting product standardisation, which, in turn, will help market consolidation. LEDs account for over 40 per cent of the cost of fixtures/luminaires. Setting up domestic manufacturing units will help in reducing costs by over 20 per cent.
Electronics Bazaar, South Asia’s No.1 Electronics B2B magazine