Sustainable Public Lighting Initiative
Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance (CVGA)
ENERGY EFFICIENT STREET LIGHTING CASE STUDY
Public lighting costs Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance (CVGA) Council members around $3 million each year and greenhouse gas emissions from street lighting make up a large part of each council's total emissions. Members work cooperatively to reduce their greenhouse emissions.
Context
Members of the CVGA are mostly councils, but a number of other regional organisations are also involved. The CVGA represents all of the councils within the boundaries of the North Central Catchment Management Authority.
The council members of the CVGA have come together to collectively negotiate with their distributor, Powercor, for the provision of energy efficient street lighting.
In any one year, around 4 of the 14 CVGA councils are scheduled for batch inspections and replacement.
In negotiating with Powercor for the provision of energy efficient street lighting in 2005, the CVGA learnt that it needed to do more work with its own members to develop a set of common public lighting procedures and practices. It also learnt that it needed to work more patiently with external agents such as distributors and the ESC to develop a collaborative and orderly transition to sustainable public lighting types.
- All 14 CVGA councils have now completed draft Sustainable Public Lighting Action Plans which detail the council's public lighting costs, numbers and emission reduction targets and which set out the public lighting roles and responsibilities of each council and external agents such as distributors, developers and the CVGA.
- Councils need to have adequate asset registers for this task. Most CVGA councils have now compared their own billing data with distributor data bases and the results of their own surveys to ensure that they have accurate information about lighting assets (type, age, configuration, location).
- CVGA engaged expert consultants to develop business cases for replacements and a Service Level Agreement with Powecor.
Future plans
Most CVGA Sustainable Public Lighting Action Plans have set a target of reducing greenhouse emissions from public lighting to 30% below 2000 levels. This could mean that these reductions will be achieved across the CVGA area (20% of Victoria) between now and 2010.
The CVGA aims to treat every batch replacement as an opportunity to improve lighting quality while significantly reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the CVGA has realised that both Powercor and the Essential Services Commission (ESC) might play a more positive role in assisting this process if a larger group of councils were to simultaneously present their business cases for energy efficient replacements on a 4-year cycle.
By liaising with similar groupings of councils in Victoria, the CVGA has obtained broad commitment to a statewide approach to the implementation of more sustainable public lighting.
The collaborative approach involving the ESC and the Municipal Association of Victoria appears to be working. The ESC has hosted a series of 'Sustainable Public Lighting Action Group' meetings between councils and the five Victorian Distribution Businesses to plan a collaborative state-wide approach to lighting refurbishment. The five regional Greenhouse Alliances have agreed to share the costs of hiring a consultancy service to prepare business cases for their proposed lighting changes.
The CVGA is now hopeful that this process will result in Powercor and Vicroads treating every batch replacement as an opportunity to improve lighting quality while significantly reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. There are a number of potential strategies that the CVGA is considering:
Turning lights off or dimming them at certain times of the night. Using dimming and switching techniques that match lighting levels to transport and pedestrian safety needs, can extend lamp life, save energy costs and drastically reduce council's greenhouse gas emissions. Britain, Europe and America are conducting surveys to distinguish the times when lights are needed to provide a safe visual environment for pedestrian and vehicular movement (generally up until midnight) and times when lighting can be reduced (after midnight) because the same level of light is not required.
Close monitoring of the performance and cost of lighting system trials. Since 2003 there have been numerous trials of energy efficient lighting installed in New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria. By closely monitoring the results of these trials, the three stakeholder groups (Powercor, Vicroads and the CVGA) will be able to assess the comparative reliability and cost effectiveness of these systems and thus come to mutual agreement on the OMR charges that are fair and reasonable for each. A summary of Victorian Public Lighting Demonstration Projects and the most promising public lighting options can be found at www.energy-toolbox.vic.gov.au/publiclighting
More energy efficient street lights and Active Reactors on Category V roads. Accelerating the replacement of 250W and 400W Mercury Vapour lamps in old luminaires with 150W and 250W High Pressure Sodium lamps, in more efficient luminaires fitted with 'Active Reactor' voltage controllers could greatly reduce OMR charges and energy consumption and improve lighting performance on traffic routes. An initial field trial conducted in Springvale Road, Nunawading (a Melbourne suburb) has resulted in an energy saving of 23% measured over a two year period. Testing of the lamps at various points during the trial projects a likely increase of lamp life of 50%, as a result of the lamp not being "over-burned".
More energy efficient street lights on Category P roads This Project would aim to identify and install more energy efficient streetlights. The possible options are replacement of 80W Mercury Vapour lamps with High Pressure Sodium 50W or T5 triphosphor fluorescent lights.
Long life Electronic Photocells to reduce 'Dayburners' and 'Drift' Central Victorian Council audits have shown that 10% to 20% of street lights are on during the day due to faulty photocells. Not only do they fail in the 'off' position, they also 'drift.' By coming on earlier and staying on longer they waste energy and increase greenhouse emissions up to 10% over a four year period. Electronic photo switches eliminate this drift.
Contacts
David Peterson
Executive Officer
Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance
Email: davepeterson@bigpond.com
Mobile: 0407 530890
1 Ararat, Ballarat, Bendigo, Buloke, Campaspe, Central Goldfields, Gannawarra, Hepburn, Loddon, Macedon Ranges, Mount Alexander, Northern Grampians, Pyrenees and Swan Hill.
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