About 700 solar streetlights installed in New Town

Kolkata: New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) has installed 700 solar pathway lights as part of its steps to make the area eco friendly .

NKDA chairman Debashis Sen along with senior NKDA officials including Susanta Sil, executive engineer and Animesh Bhattacharya, CEO inspected working of the lights.

The lights are sensitive to the darkness outside. So while sunlight is available beyond 7pm in peak summer, it is dark at 5pm in winter.

Each of these lights have a sensor that does not look at the clock and the season of the year but at the illumination level outside. So the lights turn themselves on whenever darkness creeps in, and indeed even on days of dark clouds. What is more, the lights automatically reduces its intensity level after 10pm when use of the green verges is low. The 10 pm setting can be changed, of course. All this to save energy and thus reduce carbon emissions.

Secondly because the lights use Lithium batteries they have which have long life span, no maintenance, extremely safe, lightweight, improved discharge and charge efficiency and have 100% of their capacity available .

Quite independent of the grid supply by WBSEDCL, the 700 odd standalone DC Solar Street Lights pin 24 Green Verges of New Town is a great example of an emerging trend worldwide that favours DC micro grids for lighting, mobile charging etc. An estimate indicates that Rs 3 lakhs on energy costs would be saved each year by using these 700 solar lights.

Almost all other solar energy installations in New Town use net-metering mechanism, i.e., solar energy is fed into the electricity grid during the day while grid power is drawn out at night, while the balance calculation decide the amount paid to WNSEDCL by NKDA/HIDCO.