Energy: how Saint-Nazaire managed to turn off 70% of its public lighting at night

Ophélie Artaud 5:00 p.m., January 08, 2023

INTERVIEW

Energy sobriety.

This is the watchword this winter.

Between the risks of load shedding and inflation which is causing the price of electricity to explode, the French and companies have been playing the game since the start of winter, as confirmed by the figures from Enedis.

For their part, more and more municipalities are also careful not to consume too much electricity.

In particular, this involves reducing public lighting.

On this issue, the city of Saint-Nazaire is a pioneer.

Since 2018, its mayor, David Samzun, has been testing lights out at night.

For him, it is above all "a way of combining environmental, societal and financial issues", as he explains at the microphone of Europe 1.

70% of the city extinguished between midnight and 5 a.m.

An ecological choice, because Saint-Nazaire "is a city by the sea, the Loire and the regional park of Brière and we have at the gates of the city an extremely important biodiversity. It also needs rest".

And economic interests, because "even if we were not in the situation that Europe is in today, we wanted to curb the inflation in the cost of our energy by lowering our consumption, because that is the most effective way."

Concretely, the municipality has decided to turn off certain lights every night between midnight and 5 am, and this only concerns certain districts of the city.

"It is not generalized since there is on the one hand a port specificity with men and women who work all night. And then there are the structuring axes of flows which also operate permanently. In all, 70% of the city is switched off between midnight and 5 a.m.", explains David Samzun.

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A decision which also required a lot of education with the population, worried that the lack of lighting would increase acts of delinquency.

"The numbers have not increased," said the mayor.

"The police can also relight a district or a street at any time of the night to be able to secure the interventions. And if there is a tense situation, whether in terms of public tranquility or safety linked to climatic hazards, we also rekindle the necessary time.

1.5 million euros in savings per year

From a financial point of view, turning off public lighting allows Saint-Nazaire to save "1.5 million euros each year. I prefer to put this money at the service of solidarity, to have a more pleasant city, rather than putting it in an energy bill."

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And to cope with inflation, the city is implementing new measures to continue to lower the electricity bill.

"We are in the process of modernizing our network to switch all public lighting, which is sometimes aging, to LED. These are extremely large financial sums, but our responsibility is to prepare for the long term", concludes the mayor of Saint- Nazaire.