MUNICIPALITIES: 124 PRACTICES
The Municipality of Edessa is located in Pella, Central Macedonia.
The seat is Edessa, characterized by its intense water feature and waterfalls. The economy of the region is based on agricultural development and tourism.
The issue of street lighting is of particular importance for the Municipality of Edessa because it is one of the most important areas of energy consumption and generates significant operating costs. Having as a strategic goal to reduce energy consumption, we are making a significant effort by replacing street lighting lamps.
In this way, we achieve the limitation of the consumed energy and, on the one hand, we contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, approaching the goal of reducing emissions by 20% by 2020, as we have committed in the framework of the Covenant of Mayors, while from the else we greatly reduce our operating costs.
The project refers mainly to the citizens of the Municipality of Edessa, who on the one hand have seen the quality of street lighting improve and on the other hand expect a reduction in municipal fees in the medium term, as the costs of street lighting will be drastically reduced. Additionally, the project is also aimed at visitors to the area, which is a tourist destination.
The project to replace the street lighting lamps has a duration of one year.
According to the study prepared by the Municipality of Edessa, the annual consumption was particularly high, reaching 141.4 kWh/inhabitant, at the same time as the European average varies between 40 and 80 kWh/inhabitant. In absolute terms, the Municipality of Edessa spent annually over 600,000 euros for the lighting of the streets of Edessa and the villages of the municipality, a particularly high amount. From the quotation of the above financial quantities, it is clear that the modernization of the network was imperative by replacing the existing incandescent lamps with new technology lamps, led type, which consume incomparably smaller amounts of energy and at the same time improve municipal lighting.
The brief history of the project concerns the submission to the Deposits and Loans Fund of a complete file for the financing of the replacement of all the lamps of the Municipality of Edessa with new LED technology lamps. The nomination file of the Municipality of Edessa was approved, the procedures of the open international tender were completed and then the completion of the project with the installation of the lighting fixtures.
The project had an initial study budget of €1,771,811 and the contract after the relevant discounts given by the contractor amounts to €927,646. The project concerns the replacement of 4,490 light fixtures and concerns all of the street lighting fixtures of the Municipality of Edessa. All of the LED lighting fixtures have dimmers to gradually reduce the lighting during the hours when there is no traffic on the roads and to achieve greater economy.
The Municipality of Edessa is the first municipality in Greece to have exclusively LED street lighting, as it has replaced all of its lighting fixtures.
The Municipality of Edessa had previously proceeded with a limited replacement of light bulbs in a part of the city of Edessa, with funding from the "Green Fund" program. The results of this program were particularly encouraging, both in terms of saving energy and resources, and in terms of improving street lighting.
With the project of replacing all the street lighting lamps with led lamps, the following is achieved:
a) savings of financial resources of the order of 40%, which in absolute numbers for the Municipality of Edessa corresponds to approximately €240,000 per year, which means that the project will pay for itself in approximately 4 to 5 years,
b) improving the quality of street lighting,
c) reduction of gas emissions by approximately 40% from the reduction of energy consumed for fluorescent lighting.
The entire Municipality of Edessa.
There is cooperation with the Deposit and Loan Fund, from which the financing of the project comes. It is considered important that the Municipality of Edessa was the model for this process and was followed by many municipalities that wanted to modernize their municipal lighting.
The participation of the employees of the Municipality of Edessa consists in the gathering of the data and the preparation of the study for claiming the financing of the project and of course its auction, with a public international tender.
The most important benefits for the Municipality of Edessa are a) the reduction of its operating expenses, due to the reduction of street lighting costs by approximately 40%, b) the reduction of maintenance costs of the street lighting network, as led lamps have a much longer lifespan and ten years guarantee, c) the achievement of the goal of reducing gas emissions committed by the Municipality of Edessa and d) the improvement of its services to citizens by improving the quality of street lighting.
In general, the Municipality of Edessa has so far carried out important actions to achieve the goal of reducing the energy consumed, by replacing part of the old technology lamps, but also the energy upgrade of municipal buildings.
