The CFL Pilot Project launched by PURA on September  6th 2008 has registered a tremendous success both in terms of Socioeconomic impact and Network losses reduction as well as voltage improvement at the customer premises.

The Pilot Project which was implemented in September saw the changing of incandescent lamps in the pilot area to Compact Fluorescent Lamps CFL’s Approximately 2000 CFL lamps were installed in the pilot area in Kanifing South. An average of between 15 to 25 lamps was changed in about 100 compounds.

Amongst the benefits brought about by the project are:

∑ Change Consumer Lamps from incandescent to CFL’s
∑ Advise Consumers on how to save Energy
∑ Help Consumers to save energy
∑ Provide CFL lamps for consumers to realise Energy savings
∑ Reduce the unnecessary loads on the Pilot Transformer Substation
∑ Reduce the Voltage drop on the feeders.
∑ Improve the voltage level at the consumer premises
∑ Reduce the losses on the low voltage feeders.
∑ Reduce the current levels on feeders
∑ Reduce load level at the transformer
∑ Improve the performance of the Transformer Substation.
∑ Assist NAWEC to improve upon its quality of Service
∑ Reduce CO2 emissions

The results of the pilot project are just being finalised with the consumers in the pilot area now receiving their bills for the months of September and October. The Project leader Mr Moses Gabriel Campbell, Electricity Engineer at PURA mentioned that the project was being brought to a close by interviewing the consumers in the area to see the amount of savings realised by switching to CFL Lamps.

Mr Campbell explained that a random sampling of 19 Consumers in the pilot area were taken and the data displayed in Table, Graph and Pie chart formats. Generally the trend is a drop in consumption from August to September after the CFL.s was installed.  In summary the sampled group had a 17% drop in their total consumption from 5411kWh to 4513kWh. This was equivalent to 898kWh of Electricity showing an average of 47 kWh drop per consumer.

It was also recorded earlier that the low voltages that were prevalent in the area were also improved upon introduction of the CFL Lamps as shown in the table below: 

A list of about 19 consumers was selected and forwarded to NAWEC for a printout of their consumption history from the AS400 billing computer from June 2008 to Sep 2008. The monthly consumptions for the months of August and September were compiled and compared. This showed the prevailing consumptions before and after the installation of the lamps.

The statistics table showing the drops in consumption together with the corresponding graph & pie chart are show below.

According to the project leader Mr Moses Campbell, PURA is presently compiling the final report of the CFL Pilot Project which will contain detailed information about the implementation, funding, statistics and results of this successful project.

According to him, stemming from the above project a national CFL Campaign is currently being planned by PURA, the Department of state for Energy and NAWEC whereby all incandescent lamps will be changed to Compact Fluorescent Lamps. He mentioned that the Survey for the nationwide programme is now on.