Rednitzhembach is a modern community of more than 7000 inhabitants with a modern and attractive town centre. At the same time as the town centre was being renovated, the street lighting, some of which was more than 25 years old, was modernised on the basis of a plan drawn up by N-ERGIE AG, the energy provider for the community.
Modernisation involved replacing the old high-pressure mercury lamps with modern high-pressure sodium lamps, in order achieve a sizeable reduction in energy consumption. Street lights are long-term investments so their selection has a considerable influence on the community budget. Choosing the wrong light sources would be a complete waste of money.
With the aid of innovative lighting technology from TridonicAtco, Rednitzhembach installed a new lighting concept that is virtually unbeatable in terms of energy efficiency and cost savings.
A brilliant future
N-ERGIE AG started by making an inventory of the street lighting. 510 of the 577 luminaires could be upgraded from 80 W mercury lamps to 50 W sodium lamps.
For Rednitzhembach this means that the community can save 77,000 kWh of electricity each year. CO2 emissions are also reduced by 43,000 tons a year. At current electricity prices the payback period is only four years.
This rapid amortisation and short completion time of only two months were made possible by a unique solution from TridonicAtco, namely an igniter with additional impedance. Conventional upgrades to a more efficient light source require the ballasts to be adapted and an igniter to be installed. TridonicAtco offers pure efficiency. Instead of completely redesigning the luminaires, all that’s needed is a single additional module.
This module tailors the existing ballasts to the requirements of high-pressure sodium lamps. The existing ballast remains in the luminaire, which dramatically reduces upgrade costs.
The energy savings are significant because of the greater efficiency of the high-pressure sodium lamp with its luminous efficacy of up to 150 lm/W compared with only 60 lm/W in the case of the high-pressure mercury vapour lamp. If, for example, a 125 W mercury vapour lamp is replaced by a 70 W sodium lamp, energy consumption will be 44% less for the same amount of light – that represents a considerable saving.
Summary
Replacing high-pressure mercury vapour lamps with high-pressure sodium lamps in combination with TridonicAtco igniters with supplementary impedance is an efficient and unbeatable way of keeping lighting systems up to date and operating them for the benefit of the environment and local budgets.