BLISS: Better Lighting in Sustainable Streets

 

Light plays a central role in our world

Without light we cannot work, travel or engage in leisure activities. In times of crisis, whether economic or environmental, lighting should be made more efficient, cheaper and acceptable.

BLISS stands for Better Lighting in

Sustainable Streets

BLISS is a European project which was set up to achieve a reduction in street lighting energy consumption. The project participants are St. Helens in the UK, Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Interleuven in Belgium and Kaiserslautern in Germany. Together, these four European local councils intend to drastically reduce street lighting costs by using new cutting-edge technologies.

The BLISS project's key aim is to find ways of reducing the amount of energy consumed by street lighting and thereby achieve significant reductions in CO2 emissions. Another of the project's aims is to ensure improvements in lighting, lower costs without compromising crime statistics and road accidents.

New lighting techniques have the potential to fulfil our ambitions. However new lighting controls now allow us to reduce energy consumption whilst ensuring people are satisfied with the results. We are living in a period of climate change and economic recovery. Against this background this project is helping us to reduce costs and contribute to the European target of a 20% reduction by 2020.

 

Sustainability

Sustainability to us means taking account of things now and in the future. It means assessing what we are doing at a local level right now and how this will affect our children and people in other parts of the world now and later. In this time of climate change, mitigation and adaptation are increasingly becoming key issues in our projects. By contrast, more and more houses and business premises are being built and mobility is increasing. There is a clear and urgent need to act smartly in the light of the climate crisis we are facing.

Our light projects are based on three different themes, namely a human (people) theme, an ecological (planet) theme and an economical (profit) theme. Our aim is for our projects to achieve a balance between these themes. Without such a balance there can be no sustainability and this obviously applies to all our projects as well.

 

People

Light schemes improve visibility and recognition. In addition, light schemes can reduce anti-social behaviour and road accidents. Innovative techniques are allowing us to search for new light schemes that enhance comfort in local areas without increasing energy consumption.

 

Planet

Lighting costs energy. However, new techniques enable more light to be generated while consuming less energy. Some of our projects couple energy production, mainly via solar energy, to energy consumption and try in that way to achieve an energy-neutral lighting scheme. Our projects focus not only on energy consumption but also on light pollution. We want dark to really mean dark. Light can affect night fauna and therefore biodiversity. New controlling techniques allow us to dim or switch off lights when there is no direct need for them.

 

Profit

The axiom ‘more is less' should apply to innovative lighting schemes. As regards this project our aim is to provide good examples at local level whose total lifetime costs are less compared to traditional lighting schemes. Besides reducing lifetime costs, our lighting projects are innovative and that makes them interesting to knowledge centres, businesses and universities. Our aim is for collaboration to lead to a higher level of investment and output.

 

 

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