February 2019 Lighting Journal
Finance for street lighting upgrades
ensure that investment in LED street lighting delivers in practice. In the process, and with the digitalisation of lighting continuing apace, this arguably has the potential to open up street lighting projects to a bigger investor market of technology providers and other contractors with solutions to offer.
40
CONCLUSION
new features such as CMS, which can boost savings further. Lighting columns, of course, are also a key part of the future-facing vision for urban infrastructure, whether it be as an ambitious platform for new smart city features to enhance the lives of citizens or, more prosaically, simply via Wi Fi ‘hotspots’ or air quality sensors. Ultimately, in the cash-strapped local authority climate, it is external finance that can unlock and allow a public sector body to experience the benefits of LED street lighting while paying for the upgrade from the energy savings over time. By codifying best practice in accurately calculating and delivering energy savings, the ICP street lighting protocol can help to www.theilp.org.uk
The ICP street lighting protocol is ready and waiting for lighting professionals and local authorities to discover, and can be accessed free online [3]. It provides a valuable resource for specifying and developing street lighting projects from the earliest stages through to completion and performance monitoring, bringing together best practice standards and methods from around Europe. Basing the business case on the ICP protocol and reaching the IREE standard can make a project attractive more to investors, whether they are sitting within the same organisation or bringing funds in from outside for example via, as already highlighted, the ICP Investor Network. For project developers and contractors, gaining IREE certification and becoming an ICP project developer is a way to demonstrate the quality of your street lighting solutions in a competitive market. The ICP system is intended to encourage larger scale, more ambitious projects by facilitating access to external investment. Finally – and perhaps most importantly – ICP Europe are looking for pilot projects to certify as IREE under the new protocol. Funding is available until September
2019 for technical support to help reach certification, so projects benefit from a free quality assurance service. In other words, if you’re interested, don’t delay!
Alex Rathmell is associate partner at energy finance consultancy EnergyPro and Bethan Phillips is principal consultant at energy management consultancy Verco
REFERENCES [1] Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group, 2015, Energy Efficiency – the first fuel for the EU Economy, ec.europa.eu/ energy/sites/ener/files/documents/Final Report EEFIG v 9.1 24022015 clean FINAL sent.pdf [2] UK Green Investment Bank, 2014, Low energy street lighting: making the switch, greeninvestmentgroup.com/media/5243/ gib-market-report-low-energy-streetlightingfeb-2014-final.pdf [3] The Investor Confidence Project, europe. eeperformance.org/street-lighting.html
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH If you are developing a street lighting project and would like to be among the very first globally to benefit from the ICP system, please get in touch with the ICP Europe team through Bethan Philips, at bethan.phillips@ vercoglobal.com