And the winner is …

LIFE-DIADEME wins the “EUSEW Awards 2021” in the “Innovation” category

The winners of the 2021 EU Sustainable Energy Awards were selected from a shortlist of finalists for their impressive contributions to transforming Europe’s energy landscape.

Prizes were awarded by an expert jury and the winners were announced at the Awards Ceremony during the EUSEW Policy Conference on Monday 25 October 2021 at the presence of Ms Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy.

LIFE-DIADEME, winner of the “EUSEW Awards 2021” in the “Innovation” category, is a LIFE Programme funded project that offers a low-cost way to save energy in public lighting while monitoring environmental conditions. By installing networks of sensors across urban areas in Rome, Rimini and Piacenza, the DIADEME project allows for adaptative lighting control and therefore significant energy savings.

Given that public lighting accounts for upwards of 50% of electricity consumption of most European municipalities, the ability to make savings in this area is a vital step towards climate change mitigation. By monitoring weather and light conditions in real-time, the networks of devices designed by DIADEME are able to adapt light flow accordingly. A saving of 55.0% CO2 emissions can be measured against Full Light LED installations, and of 40.6% compared to existing technologies utilising pre-programmed led installations.

LIFE-DIADEME project is led by Revetec Srl, a pioneering company experienced in smart lighting through innovative energy saving solutions and AGIRE, the Mantua Local Energy Agency .

RESULTS ACHIEVED:

Performances of the final installations in Rome, Piacenza and Rimini demonstrated a reduction of energy consumptions and GHG Emissions much greater than expected compared with the pre-programmed systems, today state-of-the-art Urban Public Lighting and much more compared with full light not-regulated systems.

The LCA Analysis demonstrated the relevant impacts of the installed system on the reduction on energy, maintenance and electronic waste costs.

THE PROJECT IN A SHOT

This project will show in situ an innovative regulation system for street lighting is economically efficient and designed to reduce energy consumption of 30% of the state of the art control systems and skies light pollution of 30%.

This technology will be installed and tested at EUR residential quarter in Rome (IT). The project analyses the life cycle of the street lighting devices assessing , in an articulated urban context, the new adaptive regulation system is integrating an adaptive regulator with a series of environmental sensors. LIFE-DIADEME will analyses preliminarly socio-economic aspect and market factors of the new lighting real-time regulation system putting as objective the reduction of 10% of the maintenance costs for street lighting, of 30% the related global expenditure.

Almost part of the energy consumption in Europe depends by urban areas and produce notable emission of Greenhouse gasses (GHG). Over 90 milliion of lighting pales count more than 50% of public energy consumption and about 60% of relative costs. Street lighting play a relevant role both for the security and life quality in urban areas. Innovations in lighting like Solid State LED (SSL) promise to user an energy saving in about 50% and a notable reducing of maintenance costs. A forward integration with adaptive technologies for smart city increase sustainability in line with EU policies toward a cost-efficiency lightening and a dependent reduction of environmental impact.

EUR quarter in Rome. Site of pilot test over ACEA SpA infrastructures.

OBJECTIVES

LIFE-DIADEME project will introduce a new street lighting system aimed to energy consumption reduction by 30% in front to a 30% reduction of state of the art consumption for regulation systems. A 1’000 low cost sensor net will be installed in Rome EUR quarter, detecting noise, traffic and meteo. A additional LCA analysis will assess costs, market positioning and socio-economic impacts focusing on cost reduction for energy, maintenance, RAEE.

EXPECTED RESULTS

DIADEME is oriented to obtain by 2020:

Street lighting energy reduction and relative CO2 emissions of 30% in front to current pre-selected solutions;
Reduction of light pollution and particularly of skyglow of 30%. Road surfaces and houses reflect light, consequently a reduction of light flows directly affects on the possibility to decrease indeed light pollution;
A global energy saving amount of about 159 GWh per year, and a related 55’850 TEP per year of CO2 saving;
Maintenance cost reduction for street lighting of 10% with a 20 year based LCA analysis;
RAEE reduction of at least 93 tons/year and 4’180 tons/year for a EU global level adoption of the system by 2022;
Street lighting expenditure reduction of at least 30%
Transition boosting toward “green calls”.

Additional socio-economic and environmental impact are recognizable.

Public body supporter