CDM based CFL scheme - Ministry of Power

Lighting accounts for almost 20% of the total electricity
demand in the country, and is a major component of
the peak load. The majority of lighting needs in the
country are met by incandescent bulbs, particularly in
the household sector, which are extremely energy
inefficient as over 90% of the electricity is converted
into heat, and only upto 10% is used for lighting. CFLs
provide an energy-efficient alternative to the
incandescent lamp by using one-fifth as much electricity
as an incandescent lamp to provide the same level of
illumination. CFLs have almost completely penetrated
the commercial market, and the sales of CFLs in India
have grown from about 20 million in 2003 to around
200 million in 2008. Statistics by lighting association
indicates that the penetration of Compact Fluorescent
Lamps (CFLs) in household sector is only about 5% -
10%; the relatively low penetration rate is largely due
to the high price of the CFLs, which costs 8-10 times as
much as incandescent bulbs. It is estimated that about
400 million light points in India today are lighted by
incandescent bulbs; their replacement by CFLs would
lead to a reduction of over 10,000 MW in electricity
demand. This would not only reduce emissions by way
of efficient end use of electricity, but would also result
in the reduction of peak load in the country which
currently faces a shortage of upto 15%.
The Conference of Chief Ministers on Power Sector
chaired by the Hon'ble Prime Minister on 28th May, 2007,
recognized the significant potential of saving electricity
through its efficient use by Demand Side Management
interventions which would provide immediate results
for saving electricity. The interventions resolved by the
Conference include bulk procurement and distribution
of CFLs (to reduce costs), adoption of Energy
Conservation Building Code (ECBC), promoting and
mandating the use of energy efficient pumps and other
energy efficient and appliances.
The "Bachat Lamp Yojana" aims at the large scale
replacement of incandescent bulbs in households by
CFLs. It seeks to provide CFLs to households at the
price similar to that of incandescent bulbs and plans to
utilize the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of
2 Bureau of Energy Efficiency
Bachat Lamp Yojana - Overview
the Kyoto Protocol to recover the cost differential
between the market price of the CFLs and the price at
which they are sold to households. The Bachat Lamp
Yojana is designed as a public-private partnership
between the Government of India, private sector CFL
suppliers and State level Electricity Distribution
Companies (DISCOMs). The CFL suppliers would sell
high quality CFLs to households at a price of Rs. 15 per
CFL within a designated project area in a DISCOM
region of operation. The CFL supplier will be chosen
by the DISCOM through a due diligence process from
a list of CFL suppliers empanelled by BEE. Under the
scheme only 60 Watt and 100 Watt incandescent Lamps
will be replaced with 11- 15 Watt and 20 - 25 Watt CFLs
respectively. BEE will monitor the electricity savings
in each project area in accordance with the monitoring
methodology prescribed by the Executive Board of the
CDM. For this purpose, BEE has developed smart
meters based on GSM technology that are fitted between
the socket and the CFL in sample households in each
project area. The GSM based meter collects the data on
hours of use and energy consumed by the sample CFL
and sends this information by SMS to the central server.
An independent agency has already been selected for
this job and meters have been installed in Vizag, Andhra
Pradesh and Yamunagar, Haryana. Test of these meters
have been carried out in NABL accredited labs. It is
expected that around 50 lakh CFLs will be replaced in
each DISCOM area.
In order to reduce the transaction costs associated with
the approval of CDM projects, BEE has developed a
Programme of Activities (PoA) which would serve as
an umbrella CDM project, and would be registered
with the CDM Executive Board. The individual
projects, designed to be in conformance with the
umbrella project, would be added to the umbrella
project as and when they are prepared. The
development of the PoA is a voluntary action on the
part of BEE, and it would not seek any commercial or
CDM revenues from the PoA. On the other hand, BEE
will, on behalf of the Government of India take the
responsibility of monitoring of all project areas after
the DISCOMs and the CFL suppliers have entered into
a tripartite agreement (TPA) with BEE.