In Conversation
Indian customers lack awareness about lighting products
PK Sood, chairman, Regnant Group
EB: What is energy efficient lighting? To measure energy efficiency of a lighting source there is a parameter called lumens per watt of power consumed. Colour temperature and colour rendering index are the parameters to check how accurately a lighting source produces the same colours that constitute natural daylight. LEDs are an example of energy efficient lighting source as they have advantage over traditional lighting sources in terms of lower power consumption, longer lifetime, robustness, etc. But due to lack of standard products in the market, they lack authenticity and hence are not able to provide as much efficiency as they ought to.
How is energy efficient lighting sector performing and what is the present market size of this sector in India? Lighting sector has registered a high growth rate in the past few years. Even during the recession, the indus2 • Electronics Bazaar • March 2010
Being nominated a member of technical committee of BEE for standardisation of LED technology based products in India, PK Sood, chairman, Regnant Group, aims to bring a change in the Indian lighting industry by introducing proper standards for lighting segment. He speaks to Himanshu Yadav of Electronics Bazaar about his vision of a country where there is respect for resources, value for manpower and stimulation for innovation try registered a considerable growth rate. It is estimated that India’s lighting industry grew 12-15 per cent in 2009 despite a slowdown in real estate. However, there are problems as well which need to be addressed. According to ELCOMA, Indian lighting industry is worth Rs 50 billion registering a growth of 18-19 per cent in 2008. CFL was the fastest growing segment, growing at an estimated rate of 25-28 per cent per year. India consumes around 200 million units of CFL yearly, while only about 150 million units are produced locally and the rest of the demand is met through imports.
EB: What are the market trends of energy efficient lighting? When we talk about market trends, we look at two trends first—how to increase the efficiency of established lighting sources by using advanced materials and matching electronics.
Another trend is the use of new lighting sources such as LEDs and electrodeless induction lamps. Talking about green building architecture, there is a prominent role of integrating electronic controls with light dimming features while harvesting natural daylight.
EB: What potential do you see for the energy efficient lighting industry in India in the next 5 years? According to ELCOMA, every year on an average 185 million 36W fluorescent tubelights are sold in the country and these require ballasts to ensure right working conditions for tubes. Even if 10 per cent of these are converted into electronics ballasts, there will be a significant energy saving of 15 to 20 watts per tubelight with an increase in light quality and efficiency. But so far, there are very few high quality electronics ballasts in the Indian market. This is just one segment.
EB: What are the top five components that need to be invested in for venturing into this sector? It all depends upon how much inhouse manufacturing of various lighting system components you wish to undertake and also the daily production capacity. The other important factor is the investment in R&D as well as QAQC equipment for production process. A basic high quality electronics ballast venture can be started with an investment of $80,000, while the upper limit depends upon the scale of the technology you wish to employ. For our CFL manufacturing facility, we have already allocated $1.2 million and are currently discussing some business plans with some investors
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