The Dim City
Driving on city roads during the night will no longer be that easy as streetlights will not shine as bright as they do now.
To cut down on increasing electricity bills on streetlights and to save power, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) plans to switch over to dimmers and ‘new timers’ on some roads.
If dimmers are installed, there will be a power drop in voltage from 240 watts to 200 watts and even up to 180 watts gradually after 11 pm. The GHMC hopes that there will be at least 10 per cent saving in the existing 25 MW power consumption per month. The power bill will also come down from the present Rs 6 crore a month.
The consumption charges for erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) were on an average Rs 2.8 crore per month and power consumption was 24 MW.
On trial basis, the GHMC has already has installed dimmers on three stretches of roads - the Raj Bhavan Road, Jubilee Hills Road No 45 and Lalapet- four months ago. There is a variation in the power consumption for 180 lights on these stretches after the installation of dimmers.
“To reduce power consumption and charges every month, dimmers, solar lights and automatic new timers are being considered to be installed,’’ GHMC additional commissioner (electrical) R B Devanand told TOI.
The new ‘timers’ being proposed to be installed will automatically switch on and switch off streetlights depending on sunlight. For instance, if there is early dusk, the lights are automatically switched on and when there is enough sunlight, they get switched off.
With merger of surrounding municipalities with GHMC and installation of more streetlights in the city, power consumption as well as charges have doubled in the past few months.
The number of streetlights has increased to 3.2 lakh in the city from 1.2 lakh. In recent times, more than 4,000 new streetlights have been installed in the city.
Source : The Times of India
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