Street lights secure traffic routes, but they use a lot of electricity.
The municipality of Otterfing did not hesitate when Bayernwerk now lured them with a nicely packaged offer: in 2021, all street lighting will be switched to LED.
This is not exactly cheap, but it also makes it possible to reduce “light pollution”.
Otterfing -
“A very good thing.” Otterfing's Mayor Michael Falkenhahn (SPD) was delighted at the latest meeting of the municipal council that the last resolution of the year was unanimous and that the municipality had a small technical lead: Bayernwerk will have all street lights by June 2021 at the latest Retrofit the community with modern LED technology.
The company takes over 30 percent and the town hall pays 70 percent.
The conversion is expected to cost the municipality just under 150,000 euros.
The conversion from street lights to energy-saving LED lights has been going on in many communities for years, including in Otterfing.
However, mostly only batches of a few lamps are changed, "slice by slice", as Robert Schüßlbauer (CSU) put it in the local council.
In Otterfing, on the other hand, the big lights are due next year: As Falkenhahn explained, the Bayernwerk has offered to convert all 424 “lighting points” with a total of 643 light sources to LED technology in one go.
"We are probably a kind of pilot project," said the mayor.
Retrofitting saves 67,000 kilowatt hours or around 15,000 euros every year
The advantages can be summed up in numbers: According to Falkenhahn, 10 watt LEDs result in annual electricity savings of 67,000 kilowatt hours or around 15,000 euros.
“After about ten years, our investment would have paid for itself,” the town hall chief calculated.
Whether there will be government subsidies for the retrofitting remains to be clarified.
In his opinion, the investment is affordable even without funding - especially since the municipality achieves an annual CO2 reduction of 34 tons.
In addition to saving electricity and CO2, the retrofit has the advantage of being able to operate precise lighting management in Otterfinger Strasse in the future.
"The system is controllable," explained Falkenhahn, "so we could also lower it later at night." Should the federal or state governments issue a stricter light protection ordinance, Otterfing has already done this homework.
New LED lights can be dimmed or switched off completely
"I'm not a fan of putting up a lamp first and then turning it off for a long time," said Gerhard Heimerer (CSU).
Thomas Hogger (Greens), on the other hand, not only praised the “enormous energy savings”, but also the new possibilities to curb the growing “light pollution” at night.
"We will be able to decide in the future how the lighting will be used," emphasized Falkenhahn.
In order to take insect protection into account, a more “warm white” light color (3000 Kelvin) is provided for the street lamp LEDs.
Bayernwerk has promised to carry out the change in the entire community within just a few weeks, said the mayor.
At the end of June only LEDs should light up everywhere.
Andreas Eichhorn (SPD) suggested ordering additional lamp posts for previously insufficiently illuminated street sections.