Kakatiya Energy Systems, an energy management company, announced its new outdoor lighting product, Nature Switch™ an automated street lighting control system. Nature Switch™ is an affordable, off-the-shelf alternative to traditional lighting controls. It utilizes innovative switching controls and when coupled with optional auto-dimming technology for HID lamps, it can reduce up to 40 percent of energy usage by reducing the wattage of HID lamps from 100 percent to 60 percent of the wattage during non-peak hours on national highways and state roads.
While India is the third largest energy consumer in the world, it has a 9 percent power deficit. Public lighting consumes approximately 7 percent of all the power generated in the country, while utilities and local governments struggle to reign in power expenditures.
“As energy and maintenance costs continue to increase, taking control of outdoor lighting costs, while keeping the lights on, is imperative,” said Lakshman Rao, Managing Director, Kakatiya Energy Systems. “Kakatiya Energy Systems delivers unique, proven and affordable lighting solutions for street lights that save up to 40 percent of energy costs using our technology solutions.”
Nature Switch™ is designed to automatically adjust to seasonal day length, requiring no manual reset at any point. The high precision of the technology is such that even clouds, rain, fog, mist, or shade will not cause the lights to switch on during the day whereas traditional sensor based controls are either on during a portion of the day or off during a portion of the night caused due to judgmental errors of the sensors. In addition, Kakatiya’s Save Switch feature incorporates automatic dimming technology for HID lamps, which allows for more efficient use of energy in lighting. For example, Save Switch feature can automatically dim street and highway road lights during periods of low traffic reducing energy usage, and leading to substantial savings to utilities and municipalities.
On average, one 250 watt lamp using Save Switch over the course of one year can save 285 kWh of electricity, or about Rs.1,700 (assuming seven hours per day at non-peak operation at Rs.6/kWh). There are approximately 2.5 lakh street lights in South Delhi alone. If just one quarter of them utilized Save Switch, the city could save approximately Rs.10.5 crores per year.
Street lights utilize over 6,000 MW of power in about 5,500 urban areas in India. Due to mounting power bills, many municipalities resort to not operating the street lights at night, which can contribute to higher crime rates. Kakatiya Energy Systems’ Nature Switch™ is an affordable, smarter street lighting control system that saves labor, energy and money while contributing to safer communities.
