The Asian Development (ADB) and Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) have urged the government to distribute 30 million compact fluorescent lamps (CFL)/energy savers free of cost to the consumers which, according to Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) are slightly hazardous, revealed by official sources and documents available with Business Recorder here on Saturday.
The only drawback to using CFL is that each bulb contains about five milligrams (mg) of mercury, a toxic heavy metal that can interfere with the development of children and unborn foetuses and may cause a wide range of health issues in adults, including brain, kidney and liver damage.
"The environmental impact, created by the CFL, is negligible as compared to coal, furnace oil and natural gas because these sources of energy also emit mercury along with green house gases, which causes global warming. "As such, the use of CFL not only saves energy, but also conserves the natural resources and environment," the documents added.
The sources said to support the government's initiative to overcome the present power crisis on fast track basis, the ADB and AFD had offered efficiency improvement projects over a 10-year period. The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) cleared the concept of this programme on April 30, 2009 at a total cost of Rs 92 billion. It will be divided into a number of tranches.
The sources said that the tranche-1 would finance people's government national energy saver programme, which had been initiated by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. It aims at replacement of 30 million incandescent bulbs in light points of residential consumers with high quality CFLs. According to the Ministry of Water and Power, this project will benefit both the utility companies and the consumers.
For the utility company, it will help reduce peak demand by about 1,100 MW, avoid about 1,600 MW in peak generation capacity equivalent to about 1.84 billion-dollar investment, cut in energy consumption by about 2500 GWh per year, cut 1.0 million tons of CO2 emissions and may generate carbon revenues amount to 30 million dollars.
The customers, the ministry hoped, would save almost Rs 300 per lamp per year in electricity bills. The government will benefit in the amount equivalent to oil import reduction and in avoiding about two billion dollars in power generation. The project will cover the entire country and will be implemented by Pepco, eight distribution companies (Discos) and Karachi Electric Supply Company Limited (KESCL) over a period of 24 months.
The CFLs will be distributed to each Disco proportionate to the number of consumers. Official documents disclose that the cost of the project is estimated to be about 85 million dollars - the ADB and AFD will finance 40 million dollars and 25 million dollars respectively.
The share of Discos will be 20 million dollars in the form of cost of service for CFL distribution and retrievals of incandescent bulbs and their disposal. The Water and Power Ministry is of the view that international experience has shown that the distribution of energy saver lamps to the consumers free of cost is the most successful way of achieving results of peak saving and energy bill savings.
According to the ministry, free distribution of energy savers will have a very positive socio-economic impact and will boost the government's image in the public, as it will help public reduce their energy bills in addition to other benefits of the project. The sources said the ministry had proposed that despite the tight economic conditions, the government, keeping in view the immense technical and financial benefits, should bear the cost of energy savers and distribute these lamps to all categories of residential consumers free of cost through Pepco-Disco and KESC.