Valencia Targets Energy Efficiency & Light Pollution Reduction

The Spanish city of Valencia is known for its weather, its architecture, its paella and its major festival of fallas, but it was also once known for being one of the worst cities in Europe regarding light pollution. But all that has changed. A lo largo de estos siete años, hasta ahora es cambiar prácticamente… We are currently at 85-90% of the LED lighting. LED lighting also has a 2700 Kelvin temperature. We are the only Spanish city that has that color temperature. Their efficiency plan has led the city to reduce light pollution and intrusive light from its 105.000 lamp posts and also see major savings in the energy bill. To save energy, we've seen countries like France or the UK turning off streetlights. between midnight and 5 a.m. But that's something that cannot be done in Spain. El Reglamento Estatal de Deficiencia Energética no lo permite, no permite que en una ciudad, en un municipio, no haya alumbrado. Lo que sí hacemos es ir bajando la intensidad de la luz a medida que van pasando las horas, que eso sí lo permite el reglamento. The local government has also focused on bringing in environmentally friendly lighting to its most important green area. We've seen many cities turning to Dunsmic lighting using detection sensors, which has been key in providing light while being respectful of the ecosystem at Valencia's Natural Park and Protected Area of La Albufera. We've put columns of a meter of height with an AMBAR light and a detection system on the paths of the Devesa, especially thinking about the people who live. which is a absolutely respectful system with the environment and obviously only use it when it is necessary, which is when people pass, that's why you have those detectors of presence. And then in some areas we have also put detectors of presence, for example, in the beach, in Pinedo, in fact, it was the first installation that we made with presence detectors. So, and precisely because it's not a very common area and then the lighting is on when it's necessary. For the city's project, Shredder provided the LED luminaires as well as the Excedra Smart Lighting Solution which consists of a photocell controller connected through cellular connectivity to an advanced central management system. The Excedra solution enables the city to remotely define on, off and dimming profiles to optimize energy consumption. and remotely detect lumina failures to improve maintenance performance and reduce costs. But there's more to street lighting than just light, and Valencia became the first city in Spain to deploy EV chargers on street lights. La red de alumbrado público de una ciudad es la mayor red de energía que existe, pública me refiero. Entonces, bueno, desde alumbrado público y desde la Oficina Ciudad Inteligente... who is responsible for the smart policies in the Ayuntamiento of Valencia. We are in continuous contact, trying to take advantage of the installation of public public policies for Smart City policies. One of the pioneer projects we put in place was to use the lights to put electric cars to incentivize the people to use the car. The project was funded by the city but also the European Commission. Installing a charging point on a street light highly reduces costs. A traditional charging station has a cost of around 6,000 to 10,000 euros. euros and a fast -charging station 50 ,000, whereas one on a lamppost only 2 ,500. Municipalities also save money as they don't have to pay for yet another energy point and they save space on the sidewalk. The project in Valencia was carried out by the City Hall in partnership with Iberdrola, which converted the streetlights. At the moment, users need to download an Iberdrola app and pay through them on their phone, but the city is looking to create a new their own platform. Across the city, there are 12 EV chargers on lampposts, with each streetlight hosting two chargers, but the city is looking to expand the project. There is, however, a major downside to this type of solution. It takes extremely long to charge. As I was taking footage of the EV chargers, one of its users explained to me that he much preferred using a regular charging station. His Tesla was set to only charge up to 80% of the EV chargers, and his Tesla was set its screen specified that to charge 30 % of the battery the car would have to stay connected for over seven hours. The benefit though of the solution is that it's in the streets and the driver told me there was normally always space to charge the car and therefore it's easier for electric vehicles to find a parking space and easier to charge for those who don't have an indoor private parking spot. For Luisa and Otario to develop these smart city initiatives the partnership between the light sector and the smart city office is key, but also having a good maintenance contract. It seems like the Mediterranean city is showing the way in leveraging smart lighting to accelerate the deployment of smart city applications. We will be following up on the city's progress and will keep you updated on their new smart city initiatives. So stick with current insights.