Lighting
Energy first
Sean Campbell, key account manager, road lighting at Signify Ireland, highlights the importance of circularity and energy efficiency when approaching lighting projects today, using the recent Dublin Port Tunnel project as an example.
S
ince opening at the end of 2006, Dublin Port Tunnel has offered much- needed breathing space to the road network above. Millions of trucks now pass from Dublin Port to the M50 (the main ring- road around Dublin) through the tunnel every year. This twin-bore tunnel which is 4.5km in length with a height clearance of 4.65m subterranean stretch of road was originally lit with 1,800 Philips luminaires, which were still going strong in 2022. That year, however, a major retrofit project gave new life to the tunnel. Crucially, from a sustainability perspective, the project used existing materials, aiming to provide all the benefits of an LED upgrade without the waste.
Energy efficiency
The Irish government has committed to reducing the country’s emissions by 51% by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. This has highlighted the imperative of doing better on reducing emissions in Ireland. To that end, Egis Road & Tunnel Operation Ireland (ERTO), which manages
18 | electrical wholesalerSeptember 2023
the operation and maintenance of the tunnel, along with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), believed that reducing energy consumed in the tunnel would be an important step in the right direction.
This could be made true in both performance and in energy savings by making the switch to LED. While we work to build a long-term energy infrastructure that’s less dependent on fossil fuels, it is only right that we should also be exploring every avenue simply to use less.
“The past few years have shown us what happens when our supply chains become disrupted. As a society, we need to do a much better job of managing materials.”
Ultimately, lighting is just one piece of the energy efficiency puzzle, but it is a relatively ‘easy win’. In the case of Dublin Port Tunnel, replacing the old HPS lamps with LED could cut the
tunnel’s electricity consumption – and the costs and emissions that come with it – by up to 60%. When Signify was approached by tunnel maintenance operator ERTO to upgrade the lighting, the R&D team set out to find a solution that could help go beyond even this energy saving, for example, by creating better visibility in the tunnel’s uniform lighting.
The team went a step further in evaluating how the already installed lights could be reused to save TII cost in infrastructure, so the project could contribute to a circular economy. The team was hopeful that a solution could be found that would bring all the benefits of modern LED road lighting while giving a new lease of life to the fittings, cabling and infrastructure that was already in place. There had been a big change in traffic flows, energy costs, and grid demands over the 17 years of Dublin Port Tunnel’s existence – and it was no different for the lighting. Seventeen years back, all 1,800 lights in the tunnel had been lit with HPS (high-pressure sodium, 150W/250W/400W) lighting, which was a perfect solution at that time to provide
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