New Delhi: With ever growing demand for power in Delhi, the alarm bells has started ringing, because at this rate the power companies will be hard pressed to meet the electricity demand. To fight the ever increasing demand for power the government has drawn up extensive plans for conserving power.

Inaugurating a Seminar on “Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficient Lighting in Building” Delhi’s CM Sheila Dikshit said that the roads of Delhi will soon get power saving streetlamps as well cut the prices of CFL lights to make them popular.

The government will launch a pilot program where it will accumulate carbon credits and pass on the benefits to the consumers who purchases CFL bulbs.

According to the CM, this will be first of its kind project in India laying the foundation for power saving in the capital.

In the same breath, the CM also warned big power consumers like, hotels, shopping malls, educational institutes etc. to install energy saving devices in their premises, and if not they will face the music. She further added that government has created enough awareness about conserving energy and other methods like solar lighting etc. and now its time to enforce it.

With power consumption rising by 9% in the capital power companies finds it hard to meet the growing demand, so far in its drive to conserve energy 4.5 lakhs conventional bulbs have been replaced with CFLs.

According to power minister the focus of conserving energy will be large buildings as they consume huge amount of power, and once implemented will result in considerable power saving easing the power demand.

According to principal secretary (power) Rakesh Mehta, installing energy efficient appliance makes good economic and environment sense. He further added that sincere efforts in this regard will save upto 500 MW of power annually equivalent to normal generation capacity of a power plant.