ESTIMATION OF WASTED ENERGY BY LIGHT POLLUTION IN URBAN AND RURAL AREAS

CABELLO A., KIRSCHBAUM C.

Viena, Austria

Congreso; CIE Conference: "Lighting Quality and Energy Efficiency"; 2010

CIE

ABSTRACT Lighting Pollution (LP) is the emission of artificial light from residential and public lighting systems toward the night sky. LP is identified by a halo of light from the lighting systems that generate interfering with the vision of the night sky and could be a potential source of discomfort for intrusion into buildings and homes. A proportion of the LP energy is wasted by failure of luminaries, excessive levels of lighting or inadequate designs. This paper proposes a method to quantify the energy waste and economic development of the LP in rural and urban areas, based on surveys of physical facilities and residential lighting, inventories of the main types of lamps and luminaries, and through an analysis of their characteristics design and installation, estimating the total luminous flux which is directed upwards and that is not used to illuminate the surfaces properly. The proposed method have been used considering existing street lights in a city of 700,000 inhabitants and in a rural village of 500 inhabitants. To estimate the energy meaning and / or economic luminous flux wasted, to estimate the amount of energy could be saved with more efficient design of lighting systems. The results show an annual waste of $ 100,000 related to an annual waste of $ 100,000 the energy consumed by the lighting of the urban area analyzed, while the yearly waste of the rural amounts $ 1000. However, the impact is greater than that the urban case if we consider an indicator which takes into account the number of inhabitants in each area. Keywords: lighting pollution, energy efficiency.