Mitigation of air pollution and carbon footprint by energy conservation through CFLs: a case study.

Abstract Electricity consumption of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) is low, making them a useful tool for minimizing the rapidly increasing demand of electrical energy in India. The present study aims to project the likely electricity conservation in a scenario of complete replacement of existing Fluorescent Tubes (FTs) by CFLs at CSIR-NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Research Institute) visa vis the financial repercussions and indirect reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, e.g. CO2, N2O, CH4 and other air pollutants, e.g. SO2, NO, suspended particulate matter (SPM), black carbon (BC) and mercury (Hg) from coal fired thermal power plants. The calculations show that the Institute could save around 122850 kWh of electricity per annum, thereby saving approximately INR 859950/(USD 18453.86) towards electricity cost per annum and would be able to minimize 44579.08 kg of CO2-C equivalent (over 100 year time horizon), 909 kg SO2, 982.8 kg NO, 9.8 kg of BC, 368.5 kg SPM, 18.4 kg PM10 and 0.0024 kg Hg emissions per annum from a coal fired thermal power plant by conserving electricity at the institute level.