Karnataka Lighting Center to Showcase New Technology

May 08, 2006

Bangalore – Sushil Kumar Shinde, Union Minister of Power laid the foundation for a Lights Museum and Energy Center (LIMEC) at Hooty in Bangalore today. The Government of Karnataka in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) developed a plan for the LIMEC as part of their cooperative work on energy efficiency.

The LIMEC will showcase cutting-edge innovations in technology, art, architecture and design. The plan is to develop a world-class interactive exhibition of energy efficient lighting products and systems. The exhibition center will exhibit illumination technology that allows light to be used in diverse areas ranging from homes, offices, theatre, shops/malls, streets, industry, painting, photography, laser/light shows and holographic 3-D images. The center will cover both Indian and international technologies that will be of interest to lighting professionals as well as the general public.

The concept of the LIMEC received broad support at the U.S.-India joint conference on Energy Efficiency Technology held last week in New Delhi. As well as demonstrating the efficiency of illumination technologies, the LIMEC will promote demand-side management approaches to adopting and commercializing energy efficiency technologies and services in India.

The plan for the LIMEC was developed with the Government of Karnataka during phase two of USAID’s Energy Conservation and Commercialization project which supported policy and market interventions to promote end-use energy efficiency. As part of the project’s demand-side management initiatives, technical assistance was provided to the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), a public sector distribution company in Karnataka to implement the BESCOM Efficient Lighting Program (BELP) in 2004. Since its inception, BELP has contributed to an increase of over 75% in sales of compact fluorescent lamps among participating suppliers in Bangalore. BELP has achieved a system peak reduction of 19 MW (megawatts) and an annual energy savings of 25 million units.