By deploying modern urban lighting solutions, municipalities can not only save energy, but also create safe and liveable public spaces. aconium GmbH is now supporting partners from five Interreg-Baltic Sea Region cities to unlock this potential.
Coordinated by Hamburg’s borough of Altona, the LUCIA project brings together ten project partners from six Baltic Sea Region countries to jointly accelerate the deployment of modern and energy efficient lighting solutions. Such solutions could for example be LED lighting combined with intelligent features such as motion or light sensors for light control. The partners all share the experience that although technical solutions exist, they are so far not used widely. The reasons for this include a lack of knowledge about latest technologies, challenges in managing different expectations and interest in the context of public participation or co-creation processes and a lack of experience with green public procurement.
To showcase the potential of innovative urban lighting, LUCIA partners plan to install and test different lighting solutions in Hamburg (Germany), Porvoo (Finland), Tallinn (Estonia), Jūrmala (Latvia) and Albertslund (Denmark). These pilot installations will serve as beacon projects which can be replicated in other municipalities. In Tallinn, for instance, creative lighting concepts for the Bastion parks surrounding the medieval old town will be developed in order to invite residents and visitors to spend time also during dark times of the year. In Albertslund, the DOLL Living Lab already operates as a demonstration area for intelligent outdoor lighting and smart city concepts. With the help of LUCIA, existing luminaires will be replaced by more energy efficient models with integrated motion sensors.
In addition to these pilot projects, LUCIA partners will provide other municipalities in the Baltic Sea Region and beyond with state-of-the-art and easy-to-understand knowledge on technological, environmental and social aspects of sustainable urban lighting. Planned outputs include a two-part compendium with the working title “Lighting the Baltic Sea Region” and an online knowledge platform on sustainable urban lighting.
Together with the Centre for Energy, Construction, Architecture and the Environment (ZEBAU), aconium has been supporting the Lead Partner and all other project partners in the project, financial and communication management of the LUCIA project since April 2019. The project name LUCIA is based on Saint Lucia – translated “the shining one”.