Public lighting and energy savings: Paris wants to be a model

During the next mandate, the City of Paris has decided to put a spotlight on the challenges of public lighting. The renewal of this contract, which expires in 2021, should be an opportunity to set major guidelines in this area for the next ten years. Better highlight the exceptional heritage of Paris and embellish peripheral districts, strengthen the safety and well-being of residents in public spaces, design new secure light paths dedicated to soft mobility, reduce energy bills and fight against light pollution: it is a priori on these major objectives that the new vision of the lighting of the “city of light” will be based… and therefore also the specifications for the new call for tenders.

In the middle of the 19th century, some 56,000 streetlights already lined Paris, which was then nicknamed ‘The City of Light’! © Production Perig

Public lighting in Paris – A lot of room for improvement with LEDs

Reducing energy consumption is undoubtedly one of the main priorities of the city. Because public lighting, which accounts for more than 30% of the community's annual electricity bill, is a major energy issue.

The first target of a 30% reduction in consumption by 2020 has already been achieved. The Climate Air Energy plan adopted in 2018 now provides for a reduction of the energy bill linked to urban lighting by 50% by 2030!

To achieve this ambitious goal, LEDs (light emitting diodes) will have to be preferred. Thanks to the use of more modern illuminated street furniture, it is in fact possible to considerably reduce the energy bill, in particular by replacing energy-intensive lampposts and by favoring the use of LEDs whose lifespan is longer and the lower maintenance cost.

According to the French Lighting Association, the penetration rate of LEDs in France for public lighting is estimated at 15%. In Paris, it would approach 20% in 2020, around 34,000 light points in the city now operating with this new technology. But with Paris having a total of 345,000 lighting points, including nearly 192,000 public lighting points, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Equip Paris with LED bulbs to save big © INTERPIXELS

@Eleanor83388692 Flaxseed I some hiding in the back of my cupboardsomewhere, filled with protein I believe, turme… https://t.co/C57srSGtqt
— Bingo2021 Mon Jul 05 10:20:54 +0000 2021

The beginnings of LED public lighting in Paris

This new type of bulb first appeared in the capital in 2015, just before COP 21, the world conference on the climate. On this occasion, the pedestrian part of the Champs-Elysées (380 lanterns), the 640 historical basins of the arcades of the rue de Rivoli, the forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville and Montmartre were the first Parisian sites to be converted. Since then, the progression continued, but the share of LEDs remains largely in the minority, and the potential for energy savings is therefore considerable.

Paris has also launched some innovations in this area, with the city even receiving the Exemplary Lighting Award from the French Lighting Association for the “smart lighting” on rue Antoine-Bourdelle in the 15th century^e arrondissement. Equipped with a presence detector, the fifteen lampposts of this quiet little street push the dimmer when a human, pedestrian, cyclist or motorist approaches. But these attempts at smart lighting, to reduce energy consumption, remain very limited for the moment.

The example of Copenhagen

To properly measure the progress that can be made, Paris can look to Copenhagen in particular. Elected "Green Capital of Europe" in 2014 and collecting environmental awards for ten years, the Danish capital aims to become the first carbon-neutral city in the world by 2025. And to reduce its CO_{emissions 2}, it has bet on cycling, but also on an ambitious plan to modernize public lighting which has led to significant energy savings.

In three years, with the help of Citelum, a subsidiary of EDF, the Danish capital has renovated half of the city's lighting equipment with LEDs and set up a remote lighting management platform making it possible to adjust the light intensity of the different districts of the city in real time according to the needs, the traffic or the way of life of the inhabitants.

The modernization of public lighting in Copenhagen, an inspiring example

Results: 55% energy savings compared to the old lighting and even 77% reduction in consumption on the 18,800 light points renovated. As for CO₂ emissions, they have been reduced by 20%. All this while at the same time increasing the intensity of the lighting on the roads to make users, in particular pedestrians and cyclists, more visible.

Copenhagen has also chosen to install the Muse light point remote management and computerized maintenance platform, developed by the French company, in order to optimize the safety, continuity and quality of urban lighting. .Solutions that will also allow the city to easily integrate all the connected services of a "smart city", which can be added to the public lighting network. Whether new services facilitating mobility (electric vehicle charging stations, intelligent parking systems), safety (traffic light signals, traffic light and speed cameras, video protection cameras) or the well-being of citizens (wifi terminals, information panels, noise or pollution sensors).

On this subject too, the Danish capital can be a source of inspiration for the future "lighting plan" of Paris.