In India, energy-efficiency is about to receive a major boost from The Asian Development Bank (ADB). The bank has announced that it will provide India with USD 200 million in loans to finance the installation of millions of energy-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) lights in streets and homes, as well as energy-efficient water pumps for farms across the country. These installations will save around 3,800 gigawatt-hours of energy per year, the equivalent of the annual output of two 300-megawatt coal-fired power stations.
“Energy efficiency is by far the least costly option to ensure or expand energy access while still cutting deadly greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants,” points out Hun Kim, Director General of ADB’s South Asia Regional Department. “With India being one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies, getting the country firmly on a path of low-carbon growth will have an impact not only at home but for the rest of the world too.”
ADB will provide the funds to Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), a joint venture between four public sector bodies: National Thermal Power Corporation, Powergrid Corporation of India, Power Finance Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation. EESL will add another USD 200 million of its own to the ADB loan, to financing energy-saving projects.
EESL will in turn make loans available for installing energy-efficient streetlights, household lights and fans and water pumps for agriculture. The entire USD 400 million project aims to install 1.5 million LED street lamps, 42 million LED household lamps, ceiling fans and LED tube lights, and 225,000 new energy-efficient pumps in Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh, as well as other states that will join in later. These installations will translate into an energy savings of 80 percent for LED lights and fans in homes and institutions, 50 percent for LED streetlights, and 30 percent for efficient water pumps.
The new loan builds on a international financing initiative approved in the first half of 2016, when ADB provided USD 115 million and the World Bank provided USD 400 million in loans for similar energy-efficiency projects in India.