Czech Republic

Introduction | Highlights | Overview of activities | Documents | Contacts

Street Lighting

Streetlighting activities focus on encouraging municipalities to retrofit their streetlighting systems and supporting installation companies in offering energy services. When discussing the preparation of projects, the following fundamental barriers were defined:

• Towns and villages have no overall knowledge of the present status and parameters of streetlighting systems; there is no prospective development conception.
  
• Projects of streetlighting renovation are given low priority.
  
• Responsible officials have an insufficient overview of the possibilities of public lighting projects' financing.
  
• The market supply for municipal representatives is not clearly arranged; they are not able to distinguish between high-quality and dubious dealer practices.
  

As a result of consistent and patient explanation, the responsible municipal representatives are able and willing to cooperate in project preparation. Without ELI's initiation they will only deal with emergency situations in future.

Projects of public lighting reconstruction are attractive for local bank branches since towns and villages are very good and solvent clients of these banks.

The ELI strategy for public lighting has been developed with the above conditions in mind.

Dissemination of Information to the Decision Makers

As one of the first steps the ELI team prepared a "Streetlighting manual", a book for municipal decision-makers about the management of STREETLIGHTING systems. The manual includes descriptions of the process of preparing retrofit projects, the tender procedures, methods of financing and other things. It is the first detailed material about STREETLIGHTING under Czech conditions. The manual has been delivered directly to all Czech cities above 5000 inhabitants (250) and to another 100 smaller cities and companies.

For a description of the various Chapters of Manual click on the link below:Content of Manual

The full text Manual is available in Czech at www.svn.cz

Translated Chapters (Marked W and EU in the Content) will be available on request in SEVEn's address.

Negotiations with municipal representatives, the initiation of projects aimed at the renovation of public lighting systems, the collection of data and the preparation of pilot projects, including negotiations with banks.
In order to successfully commence activities in public lighting, it was necessary to initiate appropriate streetlighting renovation projects. Hence, the main task of the ELI team was to negotiate with responsible persons in towns and villages. The procedure of informing municipal officials, persuading them of the advantages of implementing public lighting projects and the subsequent collection of data for the preparation of a feasibility study represented the core activities of the ELI team's technical section. When all the necessary documentation has been collected and the project's basic technical and economic parameters proposed, negotiations with banks on funding the project can begin.

The most important groundwork during the negotiations on financing was the Feasibility Study. By the end of October, negotiations with approximately 50 towns had been held. In twenty of them we are drawing up the feasibility study and collecting the necessary data, one study has already been discussed with a bank, which has agreed to a loan for project funding, and at the present time the project is being prepared for consideration by the municipal council. The next step will be the preparation of a Public Tender for the STREETLIGHTING systems retrofit.

Case Study: Lovosice Feasibility Study
The ELI team conducted the feasibility study for the town Lovosice in order to enable the city council to apply for a bank loan to finance the reconstruction of a part of its public lighting system.

City and town councils often do not undertake the overall street lighting system reconstruction, despite the fact that it could bring significant electricity savings and public approval. By helping the Lovosice representatives to develop a banking project proposal we have launched an effort to encourage more Czech cities to upgrade their street lighting systems.

The Lovosice feasibility study begins with the description of the town with a special focus on the public lighting system. The technical condition of the system represents the main part of the Lovosice feasibility study. The city representatives plan to reconstruct one quarter of the city lights (139 out of the total of 500 lights) and achieve electricity saving of some 56 MWh, or just under 100 thousand Kc (2,5 thousand USD) per year.

The feasibility study also includes the evaluation and elimination of the potential risks of the project, and a financial plan (cash flow analysis).

By helping with the reconstruction of the public lighting system we are hoping to achieve the advantages provided by a large-scale reconstruction (electricity savings, lower maintenance costs, public acceptance) in comparison with a slow, constant reconstruction, based simply on the need to repair broken lights.

The project itself and its financing will consist of two parts. One half (from a financial point of view) will be financed by the bank loan that will be repaid by the electricity savings achieved by the lighting system reconstruction. The other part will be paid by the city council from the city budget.

Since the city debt represents only 1,16% of its property, no other loans are being considered at the present time, and the electricity savings are estimated at 41% of the current electricity consumption of the part of the lighting system under reconstruction, interest from banks in financing the project is expected. The simple payback period is 4,3 years, the discounted (7%) payback period is 5,3 years.

ESCo Development
Co-operation with ESCOs/installers to ensure implementation capacity is the third key activity in this area. ELI is outlining for them the key factors required to be a successful ESCo, helping them in preparing projects and in offering their services to customers.

A sample ESCo contract for cities has been prepared, which can serve as example for other cities when offering a Public Tender for an ESCo to upgrade their streetlighting system.

Attachement: ModelContract.