Public lightening development strategy for the Municipality of Velenje

Energy inefficient public lighting is not just a problem for local municipalities. Problems of this kind occur in all major and fast developing cities. The constant demand on the infrastructure leads to a reduction in the quantity and the types of lights that are installed, and consequently, an overview of power consumption is lost. Problems that occur in the local municipalities often have a common starting point. Several local communities tried to solve the problem in numerous ways, but only a few with any success.
Energy consumption and the cost for public lighting increased every year in the Municipality of Velenje, where energy consumption for public lighting in 2005 was 1 788 802 kWh.
In 2006, in the framework of KSSENA’s activities, we developed an energy-efficient public lighting strategy to revise it according to strategic and specific objectives and the decree on limit values due to light pollution of the environment (Official gazette of Slovenia, 81/2007 and 109/2007).
The main goal of the strategy was to achieve energy efficient investments in public buildings, as a role model for other municipalities and to decrease energy consumption, costs and CO2 emissions resulting from public lighting. By executing the action plan developed in the strategy, the energy consumption in 2008 decreased to1 100 783 kWh.