Saving energy in Advent: Municipality slims down Christmas lights

Created: 04/10/2022 05:14

By: Susanne Edelman

In discussion: Christmas lights at Zornedinger Rathaus.

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The municipality of Zorneding dims street lights, lowers room temperatures - and reduces their Christmas lights.

Zorneding – In the course of the energy saving ordinances, the Zorneding town hall has also given some thought to potential savings.

There was a meeting with representatives of the building yard and climate protection manager Elisabeth Buchmann, during which a catalog of measures was compiled.

This has now been put to the City Council for a vote.

The municipality has to carry out various mandatory measures, such as lowering the room temperature in public buildings to 19 degrees.

This does not apply to childcare facilities.

Street lighting with LEDs

Many other larger and smaller measures are voluntary, but should also be carried out in the medium term, such as the optimization of lighting controls and the conversion to LED lamps in the interior of the municipal properties.

Street lighting in Zorneding has already been converted to LED, resulting in energy savings of 77 percent, Buchmann reports.

Currently, the street lights are dimmed from 11 p.m.

It is true that this dimming can be programmed to an earlier time, but this has to be set individually on each lantern, which is so complex that it would cost around 40,000 euros - with comparatively little potential for savings.

Siad Abdin-Bey (FDP) suggested dimming the lanterns earlier and then leaving them like that for about ten years,

so that the effort pays off.

Moritz Dietz (Greens) asked whether the lanterns could be retrofitted with radio modules to make such reprogramming easier in the future.

The administration wants to inquire about the costs for this before a final decision is made on the street lighting.

"Reduced Christmas lights" decided - details still open

The municipal councils were also at odds when it came to Christmas lights.

The municipality has already switched to LED lighting on the streets, which costs comparatively little energy.

However, a possible Christmas lighting at the town hall was discussed.

On the one hand, it would be a small ray of hope in dark times in the truest sense of the word, but on the other hand, the town hall also has a role model function, warned Ramona Baumgartner (left), who also asked whether business people could not also be asked to switch off their shop window lighting from 10 p.m.

Mayor Piet Mayr (CSU) replied that you could not dictate anything to the business people, but you could at least point it out to them in the community newspaper.

Giulia Hillebrand (Greens) said: "You can also decorate for Christmas without lighting."

Ultimately, the committee agreed on “reduced Christmas lighting in the village”, which still has to be examined in detail, and otherwise unanimously decided on the proposed energy-saving measures.

SUSANNE EDELMAN

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