Street lighting energy costs reduced by 80%

Street lighting energy costs can be reduced by up to a claimed 80% with the introduction of an Intelligent management system.

Until recently, no illumination systems had more than 30% energy saving. In 2009, ACR Grupo, Tecnalia and Eguzkitan created the Intelligent illumination company Luix which currently markets an intelligent system for public lighting that achieves between a claimed 70-80% saving in the energy previously consumed.

The Luix company and the Luix system rose out of the Diversification Area of the ACR group, the Navarre-based construction company. With economic and energy savings a priority for councils given that illumination takes up 55% of the energy costs, this new system, developed by Tecnalia as Luix’ technological partner, has been implemented in various urban areas of Gipuzkoa and neighbouring Navarre. The results obtained show that, for example, if the city of Donostia-San Sebastián (the capital of the Basque province of Gipuzkoa) were to implement this system for its 25,000 street lamps, the annual saving would be close to 3 million euros. Moreover, at a (Spanish) state level, the annual saving would be more than 250 million euros.

The system regulates the illumination of the street lamps depending on the persons and vehicles that are in transit at the time in the street. The streetlamps light up and dim gradually in the appropriate sequence and direction, depending on the prediction of movement and the direction of persons and vehicles present. This is possible due to the device incorporated into the street lamps that detect both presence and movement. The system is configurable in such a way that the intensity of light can be regulated without having to switch off the street lamp completely, adjusting the quantity of light to the needs of each instant, depending on the volume of persons and vehicles.

Another important advantage is the capacity for the remote management enabled by the system. At the moment a street lamp switches off or undergoes an incident, the system itself remotely alerts the operator or client, reducing the repair time to a minimum, giving rise to a significant saving in the maintenance of the infrastructure, as well as the immediate resolution of the problem.

Additionally, the system is an advance for application in future intelligent cities, where councils and the public can be provided with a significant number of new services run through a network created by the system itself, such as outside communication, sensorisation, control of the degree of contamination, control of the traffic density at any point in the city, etc.

Thus, the most important advantage is that, through all this energy efficiency, the management of remote illumination of the public highway is and incorporating it into intelligent cites, can be undertaken without any need for huge investment, given that the system is coupled to the existing cable system.

Pilot projects

The system has undergone trials, in a partial manner, in a number of municipal boroughs in Gipuzkoa and Navarre. A year ago in the Gipuzkoan village of Gabiria, the system was installed in 16 street lamps in one of its squares and the savings came to 1671 euros: 974 euros in energy savings and 697 euros in maintenance. This has meant savings of 83.84% and the reduction of 7720 kilos of CO₂ in just one year.

The city of Tolosa installed the system last July with 28 street lamps in the Usaba Sports Centre area. It is anticipated that in one year the financial savings would be 3200 euros and energy 77%. Also, the Navarre village of Ustárroz applied the same system some months ago to 35 of its street lamps. The forecast is that the annual savings would be some 6438 euros.

The municipal boroughs in Navarre of Isaba and Salinas were the first (in Navarre) to install in an integrated manner throughout all their streets. The installation was undertaken in September and it is estimated that the savings for these borough councils would be 20,000 euros in one year, with an energy saving of nearly 80%.