The International Energy Agency might try replicating India’s LED bulb policy in Indonesia to lower costs of the efficient lighting technology, reported The Hindu.

India has been rather successful in rolling out its nationwide LED upgrade program through state-backed utility company Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL).

 “The LED program by EESL has been so successful that IEA is partnering with it to take the program global,” said Paul Simons, Deputy Executive Director at the IEA while speaking at the World Sustainable Development Summit. “In particular, we would like to try this model out in Indonesia. We believe this is a best practice that must be shared.”

The EESL in India has been purchasing LED bulbs in bulk to lower prices, and distribute the bulbs under the government’s Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (Ujala) scheme which has led to a steady price decline over the past few years. The company purchased LEDs at INR 310 (US $4.65) per bulb in 2014, before the price plunged to INR 55 in March 2016.

Compared to two years ago, LED bulb production capacity has been escalated from 1 million LED bulbs to 40 million bulbs. LED lights also consume less than 80% electricity than incandescent bulbs.

 “The 175 GW of renewable energy capacity target by 2022 will not be a problem for India,” Upendra Tripathy, Secretary in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said while also speaking at the event.

The large South Asian country has also been in talks with various financial institutes, such as Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank to finance its massive LED upgrade projects.

Ashok Lavasa, Finance and Expenditure Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, highlighted the importance of energy conservation as well as energy efficiency, noting energy conservation was a far more affordable and cheaper option.

 “We could be reaching a stage where renewable energy, particularly solar, becomes cheap enough that distribution companies would start buying that energy (in preference to) energy from conventional sources,” said Lavasa.

Still any discussion on efficiency and conservation have to be based on the ground realities in India of availability, accessibility and affordability of energy, he added.

Agra rolls out LED streetlight project

Agra, a city in India’s Uttar Pradesh is replacing conventional streetlights with energy efficient LED lights, reported NYOOZ.

The municipality intends to finish the first phase of the streetlight project before India’s major lighting festival Diwali, an annual festival that takes place every Oct. 30, 2016.

An estimated 17,000 streetlight sin the city are malfunctioning. These lights will be replaced with 1,200 LED streetlights.