The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Hyderabad is about to become a 100% LED-lit airport as 75% of the work on the project has been completed.

GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd. (GHIAL), which operates the airport, announced on Tuesday that it has converted the entire taxiway edge lights from halogen lamps to energy efficient LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes).

It thus became south India's first and India's second airport to achieve this.

Complementing the recently achieved recognition of being carbon neutral airport, GHIAL is marching to transform the RGIA into a 100 per cent LED airport, and 75 per cent work on this has already been completed, GHIAL said in a statement.

The RGIA, which currently serves more than 15 million passengers per annum (MPPA) with close to 400 daily air traffic movements, has a mission to move from conventional energy to renewable energy sources for environmental sustenance. It recently commissioned a captive 5MW Solar Power Plant for its use.

Even the airside, which is the busiest and the most critical area of the airport, has undergone LED transformation as close to 500 halogen lamps of taxiway edge lights were converted to LEDs. All LEDs at taxiway edge lights cover around 26 km of the area in the airside.

The RGIA has more than 26,000 conventional lamps and more than 19,500 have been converted into LED. Migration to LEDs has amounted to a saving of 2.2 million units of electricity per annum, it said.

"Very soon we will become 100 per cent LED-lit airport. At the same time, initiatives such as the 5MW solar power plant help us to meet a significant amount of the airport's energy requirement, using renewable means," said SGK Kishore, CEO, GHIAL.

GHIAL is also exploring the conversion of runway lights to LEDs. However, as the technology of using LEDs on the runway is still in its early stages of development, it would take some time.