Good practice:

NEWlight - refurbishment of public lightning

The ELENA NewLight project has enabled the refurbishment of public lighting in two Croatian regions. The activities within the practice have involved the development of energy audits, action plans and tender documentation for the refurbishment of public lighting systems based on ESCO, design and build, leasing and traditional procurement processes. 57 municipalities have joined the initiative which will result with an investment of close to 3MEUR. The developed processes and documentation can serve as a template and basis for the development of similar initiatives in Croatia and wider.

The initiative has been funded trough the ELENA mechanism. The value of the project is close to 705.000 EUR with a funding rate of 90%.

This practice as initiated the refurbishment of over 54.000 luminaries (74% of those in the 57 participating municipalities) with an installed power of over 5MW. The resulting efficiency increase will result in energy savings of over 22 GWh annually as well as a CO2 reduction of over 5.200t. This will also mean a savings of over 2.2MEUR annually for the municipal budget. The implementation of the refurbishment is ongoing and the majority of the contracts have been signed and implemented.

The primary challenge has been the adoption of novel procurement processes within the municipalities. This challenge has been successfully overcome trough communication.

The developed process and documentation can be easily adopted to other regions or countries. The mechanisms put in place are universally applicable and the issues of efficiency in public lighting is still relevant across Europe.