Case Study (84 Kb PDF)

Summary

The Energy Agency of Massa Carrara has made a study relating to public lighting in the Municipality of Podenzana. By using efficient technique the energy consumption for lightning can be decreased with more than 52 %. Besides energy reduction the project also will lead to decrease of greenhouse gases emissions in the atmosphere, the decrease of the use of natural resources, and the decrease in the energy dependence. The present project will be used to improve the conditions in ten other Municipalities in the province, which have the same characteristic of Podenzana. Preliminary studies have been already done in six of them with results similar to the ones set out in this case study.

Results

Following results were achieved during the project:

• reduction of the electricity consumptions from 204 246 kWh/y to 96 729 kWh/y (107 517 kWh/year)
• reduction of energy costs from 127 508 €/year to 114 460 €/year (13 048 €/year)
• reduction of polluting emissions with 55 000 kg/year of CO₂
• reduction of the use of natural resources.
• possibility to pay the investment by the energy saved (payback of 4,08 years)
• replacement of the bulbs containing the mercury (noxious)
• possibility to apply this success results to the other 10 Municipalities of the Province of Massa Carrara

Lessons learned and repeatability

The Province of Massa Carrara has 17 Municipalities, 11 of them have the same lighting typology of Podenzana, while 6 of them have too long electric lines to use the power regulators. For them the Energy Agency of Massa Carrara is studying a different system which reduces the energy consumptions using a flux regulator instead of the Dibawatt® mentioned before, even if the replacement of the old bulbs with higher efficiency bulbs still holds (for example HPS).

The present project will be used to improve the conditions of the other 10 Municipalities, which have the same characteristic of Podenzana. Preliminary studies have been already done in 6 of them with results similar to the ones set out in this case study.

This project is an excellent example of how simple actions by a community using existing techniques can make a difference and play an important role fighting our common environmental problems.