PROJECT REPORT

A Report Submitted In Partial Fulfilment Of The Requirements Of

Rural Marketing Subject.

LED LIGHTS IN RURAL AREA

SUBMITED TO: SUBMITED BY:

M/s. Kriti Swarup P.VIJAY KRISHNA MOHAN

Associate Professor RUPESH KUMAR

( MARKETING )

ABSTRACT:-

An experiment with low-cost, solar-powered light emitting diode (LED) lamps

that is lighting up the lives of a handful of families in rural India could become a

beacon of hope for millions of poor people worldwide who currently rely on

kerosene lamps and other lighting solutions that are toxic--and frequently lethal-

-when used indoors. Worldwide nearly 2 billion people do not have access to

clean and reliable lighting. Half of the population of the Huge and modernizing

India do not have access to reliable and clean lighting. The use of Kerosene or

fuel wood for simple lighting is inadequate for light, polluting the homes, more

effort in organizing and finally do not help any productive work. a village is seen

in darkness the adjacent image. Artificial lighting, essential today, will not be

provided through the slow process of electrifying our villages.

INTRODUCTION:-

Emerging technologies in LEDs offer promise of reliable, inexpensive lighting to the poor and needy. The low energy consuming white LEDs housed in a lantern type case powered by a small storage battery, charged either by grid or by solar would make the lighting the poor people homes a reality.

The LED HOME LIGHTS can/will also help people to lengthen the productive day for many of their daily household tasks or lucrative jobs by extending the hours of light available to them. (see the well lighted village in adjacent image) These hours “earned” have been estimated to be worth nearly 25 million US dollar a day and 100 billion U.S. dollars a year. Even better, the benefits will accrue to the most needy! This 100 billion U.S. dollars “earned” is equal to the entire amount spent over the past sixty years by donors, international institutions and governments through a host of schemes, projects and plans.

HISTORY OF LED IN RURAL AREAS:-

LED Lighting projects started in small way back in 2003 when the concept of using LEDs as an alternative to costly and inefficient incandescent light bulbs, and not so efficient CFLs was yet to be realized in India. Companies implemented its LED lighting technology in a remote lamabdi tribal habitation called Choututla in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh as proof of concept. Here 33 houses were each provided with 3 LED light bulbs each, which were powered by a common apparatus consisting of a 36w Solar panel mounted on one rooftop, a 40amp 12V lead acid battery, and a charge controller.

They have monitored the usage of these lamps over a period of 6 months, and studied the uses, effectiveness, and changes in life-style of the tribal folk, and after being absolutely convinced that LEDs were definitely the future of Lighting systems, decided to go ahead and provided a similar model to several other remote habitations in Andhra Pradesh, including Peddarutla Habitation, which lies bang in the centre of the dreaded Nallamalla forest range which is one of the biggest forest range in India, and it was virtually impossible for the Government to provide electricity supply here.

Over a period of time, based on the learning's from the field and after several changes, modifications, and up-gradations, they released its current model of the LED Lighting System which comes in a highly robust polymer casing, consists of a modular and state of the art microcontroller based circuitry, and which is capable of providing over 80hrs of clean and bright light. This lamp runs on a 6v 4.5ah sealed lead acid battery that has to be charged once

in a while. This provided an additional livelihood option for Rural entrepreneurs,

who are provided with charging systems, and for a small fee help in re-charging

the batteries, and helm maintain the lamps.

Technical Information on LEDs:-

LEDs are very fast emerging technology in lighting that is considered as brilliant

a technology breakthrough as the Edison light two centuries ago and is

considered by the World Bank to be the solution for lighting up the 'bottom of the

pyramid’. LEDs are more commonly thought of as the tiny red and blue dots of

light on household remote control units, but the new generation of LEDs give out

useable white light that can be used in any light product.

LEDs are durable semi-conductors that provide one of the world’s most energy

efficient light sources, with the newest models delivering around 70 to 100

lumens per watt. This means LED lights use approximately 10% of the energy

consumption of incandescent bulbs (normal light bulbs) and 30% of the energy

of compact fluorescent lamp ('CFL') bulbs, respectively. The lights have very low

failure rates (less than 1 in every 1000) and consume very little power (either

from the grid or from solar recharging).

LEDs have a lifetime of over 100,000 hours, which means they last more than 50

times longer than incandescent bulbs and 15 times longer than CFL bulbs.

Even after 100,000 hours, the LEDs don't just burnout - they just lose 10-20% of

their rated intensity, which may not be noticeable in many applications. A

summary of the differences between the performance LED and solar lights is

provided below:-

LED lights offer significant cost savings compared to normal incandescent

lights. By way of illustration, the US Department of Energy estimates that

approximately 22% of the electricity consumed in the US goes toward lighting,

and if 25% of the light bulbs in the US were converted to LEDs, the country

could save $55 billion in utility costs cumulatively by 2025 (cost of LEDs v

normal bulbs ?). A saving of $55billion would alleviate the need to build 65 new

coal-burning power stations. Furthermore, future developments in LEDs are

expected to result in future LEDs having twice the current lumens per watt

which would double these savings. The US example can be applied across the

world.

LEDs in India

LEDs are slowly finding their way into the Indian market in the form traffic signal lightning, LED display panels and other applications. Compared to the large potential market, the current market players have yet to take advantage of the opportunity. There therefore exists significant scope for professional and competent firms to succeed in the market.

For example, MIC Electronics www.micelectronics.com has recently raised500 million Indian rupees for its LED lighting expansion activities through an IPO, which was over subscribed several times.

LED Lamps Provide Safer and Better Light For Less:-

Replacing kerosene lamps with clean solar-powered LED lamps also provides healthier and safer living conditions as well as better light for less money. According to The Christian Science Monitor, about 1.5 billion people worldwide use kerosene to light their homes, but the fuel is dangerous.

Separate reports by the Intermediate Technology Development Group and the World Health Organization indicate that indoor air pollution from kerosene and similar fuels used for indoor lighting and cooking cause more than 1.5 million deaths annually. The risk of fire is another significant health hazard with kerosene lamps.

Energy Soure (Kerosene Expensive and Dangerous):-

Kerosene is also expensive for people living in poverty. In rural India, for example, buying kerosene requires nearly 4 percent of a typical household budget. Finally, LED lamps are simply more efficient and provide more useful light. According to The Christian Science Monitor, LED lamps produce “nearly 200 times more useful light than a kerosene lamp and almost 50 times the amount of useful light of a conventional bulb.”

“This technology can light an entire rural village with less energy than that used by a single conventional 100 watt light bulb,” says Dave Irvine-Halliday, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Calgary, Canada and the founder of Light Up the World Foundation (LUTW). Founded in 1997, LUTW has used solar-powered LED technology to light nearly 10,000 homes in 27 developing countries.

Strategies Needed to Reduce the Initial Cost of LED Solar Lamps:-

For the program to work long-term in India, GSBF says it will be necessary to lower the cost of the LED lamps by manufacturing them inside India instead of importing them from China and elsewhere. Manufacturing the lamps locally would lower the cost from $55 to $22 per unit, but building a factory would cost approximately $5 million, and investment capital is not easy to find.

Rural Electrification and Carbon Emissions:-

One of the biggest problems in connecting remote rural areas to the national grid is the lack of infrastructure. Many of these villages are not connected to the gird and any proposed projects to make electricity available to these villages get entangled in the bureaucratic web of the Indian administration. Even if the government goes ahead with the electrification of these areas the most obvious source would be coal-based power plants since coal is the cheapest power resource.

This however, would significantly increase country’s carbon emissions output and could jeopardize India’s goal of reducing its carbon intensity by 20 to 25% from 2005 levels by 2020. India has, for long, argued that it cannot agree to mandatory absolute emission reduction targets since it has to electrify hundreds of thousands of villages. The World Bank, too, has agreed with the government’s stand.

Economic Benefits:-

Projects like the distribution of solar-powered LED lamps would certainly meet a part of the lighting demand in the rural areas. Thousands of school children complain about lack of lighting facilities at their homes which makes it impossible for them to study at home. Students can reap direct benefits from this scheme. This project can open up several other economic avenues for the millions of unemployed rural youth.

The solar panels or the biofuel-powered recharging station would require construction work and maintenance, this would create jobs for the villagers which could in turn reduce their migration to big cities. These recharging station could also work as distributed power generation units, thus reducing the need for connecting these villages to the national grid.

The capacities of these recharging stations can be increased and local biomass such as farm residues or animal waste can be used as energy sources.

Another similar project was launched by The Energy and Resources Institute, wherein about 200 million solar powered lanterns are being distributed in villages across the country. Common people and businesses can contribute to this project by donating money. Such projects bring hope to a country suffering from the lack of basic infrastructure. Hopefully these modest initiatives eventually turn into large scale power generating alternatives to centralized power generation and can bring sustainable economic wellbeing to India’s villages.

Key User Benefits:-

• Provides clean and reliable lighting to rural / tribal homes.

• Avoids the air pollution in the homes that is generated through kerosene lights - a recent report by the World Bank suggests that indoor air pollution from kerosene results in 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year. The World Bank also notes that 780 million people in the developing world, mostly women and children, are exposed to kerosene lantern fumes equivalent to two packs of cigarettes a day.

• Research indicates that using LED lights instead of kerosene could help reduce the risk of malaria. This is because mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide that kerosene lights emit, whereas there is no attraction to the white LED light.

• Reduces the cost of lighting - despite being heavily subsidized Kerosene consumes nearly 4% of a typical rural Indian household's budget.

• Improves the lifestyle and productivity of the women in cooking and dining in ambient lighting.

• Provides safety / security for women walking at night in the dark. • Helps the children study at night • Helps the women and men do any vocational activity that can be done

from homes in the night and raise income. • Creates employment opportunities as for every 100/150 lights one

person gets full employment for maintaining and charging the LED Home Lights and for every 1000 lights one person gets full employment in servicing the lights.

• Creates social entrepreneurs opportunities for youths to increase their income and have an avenue to service their communities. THRIVE will

be promoting light entrepreneurs every where in the world and provide a line of support, product, training and self esteem.

• In urban areas, LED provides effective substitution in the time of power cuts and compares favourably (both in performance and cost) to other emergency lights in the market. In addition to the poor, the urban middle class require an emergency or regular light that help uninterrupted studies of children, and general household activities in times when there are power cuts.

Key Commercial Benefits:-

• The Government of India through state governments currently provide subsidies on kerosene that costs Rs 75 each month (Rs 900 each year) for each family, assuming of 3 liters of kerosene for each family each month.

• THRIVE 's LED light will be marketed to Governments and NGOs for a sale price of Rs 800-900 which means there will be a 'pay-back' within 1 year.

• For every LED home light that the government can provide it could save Rs 900 (cUS$ 22) p.a. Therefore if the State Government of Andhra Pradesh could provide 10 million LED home lights to every needy family in the state they would save US$ 225m of subsidy on kerosene a year. In addition, they could expect to see an improvement in economic productivity of at least another US$ 250m each year, in addition to the huge social benefits in health and education described above.

Key Environmental Benefits:-

• The use of LED lights will reduce the environmental damage that kerosene lighting creates. Using an LED light compared to a kerosene lamp saves one ton of carbon emissions over 3-4 years, which equates to US$ 30 of gold standard carbon credits.

• Therefore 10 million LED lights would save 10 million tons of carbon emissions, which would equate to US$ 300 million

Routes to Market and Implementation:-

Route to market has, until now, been almost exclusively through NGOs and World Bodies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the Department for International Development. A typical project / order would work as follows:-

� An NGO or a government / semi-government agency will contact to Company or Organization because it wants to bring light to a village where it has a presence. Generally the NGO will have an office in relative proximity to the village and some field volunteers in the village. From each village the NGO will have a volunteer / coordinator for programmes in that village.

� Organization will prepare a good GIS map for the area and with the help of the NGO will understand the local electricity supply and usage situation. Organization will then install some demonstration lighting in the village (either using its own funds or some initial funding from the NGO). This helps the community, the NGO and other stakeholders to buy into the project. Organization will then organize training for the NGO and explain the steps and stages involved in the project.

� The local NGO volunteers and staff will then identify the villages and plan for the phasing of the implementation and start developing registers and village household data. Lamps will be sold to the NGO for 800-900 Rupees each (costing Organization 600-700 Rupees to manufacture). The NGO will then expect the householder to pay an upfront contribution (say 350 Rupees) and will then collect a monthly payment for the next 5 years to pay for the light (say 30 Rupees per month) and pay for the maintenance / battery costs (say 5 Rupees per month).

� Phased implementation then begins with charging stations identified and battery charges installed in the stations. Each station can serve up to 10 villages depending on the proximity of the station to the villages. Villages will usually be within a maintainable distance of 10 km. At this stage the NGO also collects the advance deposit from the householder at an agreed rate.

� Every 10 days or so the volunteer organizes the charging of the batteries at the charging station (either through grid power or through a solar charging station wherever there is no grid power). The charging station

will always keep 3-4 spare fully charged batteries as well as 2 lights. In addition there will be district maintenance units that will carry spare display PCBs and control circuits, which are 'plug and play' which means they can be simply removed and replaced without any soldering and unscrewing.

� Monthly rental is collected by the volunteer and paid to the NGO and volunteer share is distributed. Accounts are maintained and capital cost (in case needed) is paid back to the lender. The village entrepreneur can earn a monthly income of Rs1000 to Rs2000, based on the number of LED Home Lights they maintain and service.

� The table below provides an example of how the funding of a typical NGO project would work. This example assumes the NGO is required to borrow the funds at a commercial rate and repay within 5 years. It is frequently the case that the NGO is 'granted' the money or its is lent on an interest-free scenario. In these scenarios the NGO will either have great 'profit' to reinvest into the villages or will be able to reduce the cost of the lamps to the villagers.

LED / Solar Entrepreneurs - will typically operate in small rural towns / villages from a shop (also their home) and a vehicle. They will buy lights from Organization on a sale or return basis and will be responsible for servicing the lights and charging the batteries and will charge for extra to his customers for this.

Advantages of LED Lighting:

• No Filament burn-outs

• Less power consumption

• High Luminous efficiency

• Solid-state Technology -- Vibration & Impact Resistant

• High Luminaire efficiency

• Long Life

Street lighting

Salient features

• High Lumen Output

• Long Life >50,000 Burning Hours

• Available in 36W,60W,90W & 120W

• Maintenance free

• High Energy Savings > 50%

• CRI 70+

• CCT 5000-6500K

• Intelligent Sensor

• Dimming compliant

• Material : pressure die cast Aluminum

• Finishing : Silver Powder coating

• Low Glare

Applications

• Municipalities

• All Industry Street Lighting Applications

• All Road way Applications

Solar LED Home Lighting Features

The solar home lighting system harnesses the power of the Sun to provide reliable, cost effective electricity wherever it is needed. Solar Home system is an excellent solution for household level electrification in rural areas. With such an excellent solution we have positioned ourselves amongst principal LED solar home lighting manufacturers and suppliers in India and abroad maintaining International standards.

LED Home lighting System is powered by solar energy using solar cells that convert solar energy (sunlight) directly to electricity. The electricity is stored in batteries and used for the purpose of lighting whenever required. These systems are useful in non-electrified rural areas and as reliable emergency lighting system for important domestic, commercial and industrial applications.

References:-

1. www.wikipedia.org

2. www.googleimages.com