ENERGY SAVING PUBLIC LIGHTING IN MALTA - MIEMA

Energy Saving Public Lighting in Malta4 Energy Efficient Public LightingOne sure way of reducing the consumption of electricity and the associatedCO2 emissions is the installation of public lighting. The majority of streetlighting currently makes use of sodium vapour lamps. Replacing these byLight Emitting Diode (LED) technology can represent a considerable saving byvirtue of the inherent electrical energy efficiency of the latter whencompared to conventional alternatives. The very low consumption figureshelp offset the main drawback of LED lighting, namely the initial capital outlayof LEDs in comparison with conventional street lamps lights, currently standingat about three times as much. Moreover, LED lights require next to zeromaintenance costs.The return on capital investment is further enhanced by the fact that amodern LED lamp has an endurance of over 100,000 hours. This contrastssharply with a conventional sodium-vapour street lamp lasting for only 18,000hours. An LED's lifetime is thus around 5 times longer than that of a sodiumlamp, and although the unit cost difference is in favour of the conventionallamp, this is mitigated by the labour cost of replacement of a single streetluminary lighting fixture, considering that these are always located well aboveground level.When all is said an energy-efficient solution reduces maintenance, labour andthe luminary costs by a factor of more than 5. It is estimated that if as little as10 normal street lights are replaced by LED lamps, the CO₂ emissions can bereduced by 1,000 kg annually.Malta Intelligent Energy Management Agency 10