The famous Central Vista of the national capital will not be the same any more. The new dynamic façade lighting over an area of 21,450 square metres has the potential to present 16 million colour combinations, displaying a wide range of patterns and themes during the night time with colours changing every few seconds.
Installed by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), an attached organisation of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, the new façade lighting of the two famed buildings will be switched on by Shri Mahipal Singh, the senior most support staff (Multi Tasking Staff) of the Ministry of Home, housed in the North Block on Wednesday next 6.30 am. The new lighting system will be on show for the benefit of media and the people of Delhi.
The new lighting will be on show from 7.00 pm to 5.00 am all through the year with full capacity prime time lighting from 8.00 pm to 9.00 pm. With inherent dimming facility, the electrical load will be 25% during 7.00-7.30 pm and 10.00 pm to 5.00 am while the load will be 50% during the remainder of the night.
The entire network of new lighting using the state of the art RGB LED technology with 40 kms of unified power and data cabling has central computerised control with automated selection of colour combinations, with selection of timing, dimming and switching on and off facility, individual and combined control of light fittings etc through Ethernet based controller.
It is capable of providing both volume and focus lighting to highlight the architectural features of the historical buildings, a fine blend of the traditional Indian and British architecture, further enhancing the grandeur, treating the visitors to a new feast of colours. The frontal façade, loggia, central dome, flag posts etc., will be highlighted by the new lighting using narrow, medium and wide degree beam angles as required. The light fittings have external lenses to enable change of beam angles as per site requirement. It has an inherent capability and versatility for choosing different colour themes and schemes on special occasions.
The annual saving on account of new lighting of 21,450 square metres of façade area in respect of replacement, maintenance and operation cost will be INR 86.40 lakhs. The life of the new LED light fittings is over one lakh burning hours, coming to about 25 years as against only 10,000 burning hours for the existing. Energy consumption by the present limited conventional lighting using LED, Metal Halide and Sodium Vapour light fittings is INR 17.00 lakhs per year, double that of the extended year round new dynamic lighting with an energy consumption of only INR 8.40 lakhs per year.
CPWD that has put in extensive efforts towards conceptualisation, designing and execution informed the Ministry that the initial investment of INR 15.40 Cr. for the new lighting will be recovered in just 6 to 7 years and thereafter the system becoming virtually free of cost as against the costs being incurred every year now.
Under the present lighting system, fifty thousand three watt LED bulbs in strings nailed on the walls of the iconic buildings are being used for special lighting on eight occasions in a year besides 170 lamps of 400 MW/250 MW Metal Halide and Sodium Vapour for façade lighting and 72 LED lights for security lighting. The new dynamic lighting system with 800 fittings will do away with all of these.
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