Modern urban lighting must balance the various needs of people, providing security, considering aesthetics, comfort, well-being, and be economical. Street mobility systems like electric cars or traffic management systems require additional energy sources. Building of new grids enhances the total CO2 footprint. Cities need new smart grid solutions that do not improve the negative environmental footprint.
Integrating LED streetlights with smart city infrastructure and provision of new services and opportunities is a key urban challenge. LED technology offers new opportunities for urban lighting, but excessive or poorly directed artificial light can cause light pollution, impacting energy use, ecosystems, wildlife, and human health. Street lightening has been changed from luminaries to led, but it consumes energy also at times nobody uses it. Light posts are monofunctionally used only for lightening and supplied by distribution system operator, while the electricity could be generated locally both by the tops’ attached solar panels and adjacent bigger capacity renewable plants, including wind sourced. This entails an opportunity to engage residents from their districts to organize into energy cooperatives and provide the renewable energy on behalf of stronger local interest. Islands Energy Agency can help facilitating the initiative and engage grants to empower locals limited financial capacity. In addition, lightening posts with integrated renewable electricity would suit to serve as EV charging stations at suitable for parking spots. Local energy cooperatives provided solution enables to improve the project’s feasibility by offering the charging service to island visitors, particularly at summer touristic season. At times of grid outages, the described system serves as a reserve capacity, supported by storages in bigger centers of the Estonian biggest island. Energy consumption per inhabitant for road and street lighting is currently 100% higher in Maribor than predicted by national regulation for the maximum allowed consumption. Energy consumption for lighting has to be reduced bellow the limit determined by regulation which is 45 kWh/ per inhabitant. With the new solution for lightning system, light pollution can be reduced at the same time implementation of new smart lightning system allows new smart city functionalities. The lighting functionalities can reduce the quantity of used energy depending on the needs or time. Implementation of smart lightning system would improve smart functionalities.
