Solar street lights will light up the cities

Recently, the pilot project for illuminating city streets with solar lights, failed to light up the city, because a number of solar street lights refuse to light up after sunset. This will have bad effect on the promotion of solar products.

However, a set of solar street lamps on a nearby EM Bypass stretch, sponsored by CESC and maintained by the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA) is fulfilling its role, illuminating the traffic-heavy zone each evening.

The CMC, in collaboration with WBREDA, had undertaken the pilot project more than two years ago by setting up solar powered street lights on a 1km stretch of Khanaberia, in the backyard of Dhapa, spending Rs 34 lakh.

“There are no electric lights in the area. These are all solar-powered lights but they do not light up regularly. There are over a hundred lamp posts but hardly 30 to 35 glow at night. During rainy season, when we need street lights the most, they remain dark,” said Khokan Naskar, another resident.

WBREDA, the agency that has implemented solar lighting on the EM Bypass and in Jadavpur and Indian Botanic Garden, apart from Khanaberia, however, stresses that with proper maintenance solar lights could work well.

“We have erected 200 solar lamp posts all over the city at a total cost of Rs 1 crore,” said S.P. Gon Chowdhury of WBREDA. “The ones at Khanaberia, too, have been installed by us. It is true that solar lights are expensive but they are healthier than halogen lamps,” he added.

Although, there are some problems with the application of solar street lamps, the solar street lights replace all the solar products.