Abstract
Purpose
Outdoor lighting is facing major changes due to the EU legislation on ecodesign of energy-related products, such as the ban of high-pressure mercury (HPM) lamps widely used in outdoor lighting. This article presents life cycle costs (LCC) of three examples of replacing HPM lamps in street lighting in Finland. The purpose of the article is to assess how the development of light-emitting diode (LED) technology affects LCCs and how the division of LCCs differentiates in the cases.
Methods
Two of the cases change from HPM lamps to high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. In the third one, HPM lamps are replaced by LED luminaires. LED technology predictions of price and luminous efficacy are included in different scenarios. The calculations consider investment and operating costs and residual value.
Results and discussion
Each replacement reduces the energy costs approximately by half compared to the original HPM lamp luminaires. Energy costs dominate the LCCs of the HPS lamp installations while investment cost is the dominating one in LED luminaire case. The changes from HPM to HPS technology have payback times lower than 9 years, while changing to LED luminaires is not economic. However, the electricity price is low in this case. The payback times of LED installations can be as low as 6 years if the luminaires are installed in 2015 and an average electricity price is used.
Conclusions
The LCCs of real-life case studies cannot be directly compared, since their luminous properties vary. There is a need for a method for including luminous properties in LCC calculations.
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Acknowledgements
The work is part of an EkoValo research project carried out by Lighting Unit of Aalto University. The EkoValo project is funded by several Finnish companies and municipalities. The project is part of the Sustainable Community Programme (2007–2012) of Tekes—the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
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Responsible editor: Wulf-Peter Schmidt
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Tähkämö, L., Ylinen, A., Puolakka, M. et al. Life cycle cost analysis of three renewed street lighting installations in Finland. Int J Life Cycle Assess 17, 154–164 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-011-0345-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-011-0345-z