The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is set to open its carbon credits account by January through the use of energy-efficient streetlights. The carbon credits will earn the civic body over Rs 10 lakh a year and will hold good for 10 years.

The PMC has become a part of a consortium of seven civic bodies — Latur, Akola, Indore, Bikaner, Ajmer and Alwar being the others — that have aligned with Mumbai-based Asian Electronics, a supplier of energy-saving equipment, to earn carbon credits.

“The initial process for registration of the project for carbon credit has been completed. Once that happens, the civic body will start getting monetary benefit in the ensuing year,” said Shrikrishna Chaudhari, deputy city engineer, PMC.

Though the project commenced in 2007, many civic bodies had delayed the submission of their proposals resulting in a resultant delay, said Sandip Tambe, general manager, Asian Electronics. He cited the example of Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation that was supposed to be part of the consortium, but had to be left out as it was delaying the consent beyond an acceptable timeframe, though it is implementing the energy efficient streetlight project.

The PMC’s plan is to replace 15,000 lamps of 150-250 watts with T-5 type fluorescent lamps to reduce power consumption. The new lights have been installed across the city with at least 1,000 energy efficient streetlights in each of the 14 wards. Chaudhari said the main idea behind the project was to save energy and reduce the civic body’s expenditure on power tariff. Once this project is rolled out, there will be a saving of 3 MW per year. There are 1.25 lakh streetlights under the PMC jurisdiction.

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