Zagreb Lighting to be Modernised in 318 Million Kuna Investment

November the 25th, 2021 - Zagreb lighting is about to get a ''do up'' in a large investment. Although in the previous period several EU projects of the modernisation of city lighting were realised in Croatia, the most extensive of which was Newlight from the Elena program in which 57 cities and municipalities from Zagreb and Krapina-Zagorje County renovated 54,830 lamps in an investment of 22 million euros, the new Zagreb lighting project will be a step or two above that in terms of its scope.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, thanks to the European Union programme ''Elena'' and the ''RePubLEEc project,'' the City of Zagreb is launching an investment in public infrastructure worth more than 318 million kuna, and it regards the reconstruction of about 40 percent of the existing public Zagreb lighting across the capital.

The main goal of the RePubLEEc project is to increase the energy efficiency of public lighting systems, reduce the impact on the climate, increase standards and safety for citizens and prepare for the so-called Smart City transition. All this also directly implies the achievement of savings in electricity and maintenance and the operating cost of public infrastructure.

As pointed out by the Regional Energy Agency of Northwest Croatia, which both prepared and operationally managed projects for Zagreb and Krapina-Zagorje counties, and now does the same for the City of Zagreb, the RePubLEEc project is innovative primarily because its implementation doesn't involve any new borrowing.

“The implementation of the modernisation of the public lighting system is envisaged according to the model of the Energy Performance Contracting (EPC). This contracting model is implemented in such a way that the private partner independently designs, finances and performs works on the reconstruction of public Zagreb lighting and guarantees the realisation of the contracted standards (functionality, lighting and minimum energy savings). The energy performance contract is concluded for a period of seventeen years, two of which are intended for the design and the execution of the works, and fifteen years are intended for the provision of the lighting services. Based on the savings in electricity costs, the entire investment will be paid, ie the City of Zagreb won't have to plan to increase the expenditure side of the budget for its implementation, but instead to reduce it,'' they pointed out from the City of Zagreb.

They added that such contracts not only guarantee implementation but also protect public money, because in the case of non-compliance with contracted standards by ESCO partners, failure to achieve energy savings, insufficient lighting, faulty lamps, etc, and the contracted EPC fee is automatically reduced on a monthly basis (in a pay per performance scheme) which isn't in the interest of the private contractor and is a guarantee of a job well done.

As part of the EPC Agreement, the Management and Control Centre of the public lighting system is being implemented, which will communicate in real time with all luminaires in the scope for the purpose of the monitoring and regulation of luminaires - records of failures, energy consumption and so on. Thus, Zagreb will have the ability to manage and monitor all of its new lamps in real time.

Each lamp in the range will have a place to receive various sensors such as the measuring of noise, air temperature, humidity, vehicle flow, lighting, the monitoring of electric charging stations for vehicles and more. The reconstruction of about 40 percent of the Zagreb lighting fixtures according to the model of the Energy Performance Agreement will achieve savings in electricity consumption in the amount of about 75 percent or about 21 GWh per year.