Can you tell about achievements the Company gained in ensuring the lighting efficiency and beautiful look for urban landscape while successfully implementing the electric energy saving program in 2010 and especially in the dry season of 2011?

Mr. Do Dinh Phuong: Quy Nhon City - Binh Dinh - was upgraded to first class municipality in early 2010. While sharing such pride, we were concerned of how to make the lighting and decoration of urban landscape match the status of Quy Nhon City which was becoming more developed.

In reality, Quy Nhon Green Parks and Urban Lighting Ltd. has been assigned to manage nearly 300 kilometers of urban landscape for lighting, including 110 kilometers of alleys in residential quarters. The Company purchased equipment step by step and now has 9585 sets of lights of various kinds, 256 color light frames, decorative electronic firework lights and 29 traffic lights sets. For the operation of the lighting system, in the whole city there are 161 lighting control cabinets in 5 simultaneous switching modes for specific time points.

Thoroughly grasping Directive 171/CT-TTg issued on January, 26th, 2011 by the Prime Minister, Directive 04/CT-BCT on January 28th, 2011 by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Directive 03/CT-UBND on March, 18th, 2011 by Binh Dinh Province on further promoting the practice of power savings, especially during the dry season of 2011, we are always conscious that the responsibility of the urban lighting company is to ensure higher efficient and brighter lighting, thus giving a beautiful modern look to the city at night, and keep the traffic lights in smooth and continuous operation, thus contributing to the implementation of the project of beautifying Quy Nhon City. But the prerequisite and most difficult problem to solve is that of "saving no light but energy”, thereby reducing the city’s annual budgets for lighting while joining hands with the whole province as well as the country to save electric energy, especially in the dry season of 2011.

In implementing a number of technical professional solutions in 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, Quy Nhon Green Parks and Urban Lighting Ltd. has achieved positive results in operating the urban lighting system that works with higher efficiency and saves more electric energy as well as the province’s budgets. The city’s electricity consumption in 2010 decreased by 13% as compared to that in 2009, saving approximately 600,000 kWh, which is equivalent to 760 million VND.

In the first quarter and the dry season of 2011, Quy Nhon City jubilantly celebrated many big festivals such as the New Year, the First Vietnam Forestry Festival, the South Music Festival… On the festival nights, the streets of Quy Nhon City were colorfully stunning, lighted brighter and decorated more brilliantly, but the electricity consumptions decreased by more than 9% over the same period the previous year.

Can you give some details about solutions your company has taken in solving the problem of saving electric energy while maintaining the high efficiency of lighting in the city?

Our company has been promoting the propaganda among the people and the staff of the company to raise their awareness of the policy and directives issued by the Governmental bodies and the Municipal Authority on electric energy saving in public lighting, thus creating high consensus and unanimity. The prerequisite solution that the Green Park and Urban Lighting Ltd. implemented simultaneously was changing the capacity of light bulbs and capacity reduction devices. Due to various reasons, in the lighting system in Quy Nhon City, low efficient bulbs still account for 11%; CATN bulbs and single mode IP23 protection lights which have been in operation since 2000 account for 90%.

In doing the maintenance, the company implemented rolling replacements of CATN SON 250W bulbs with 210W ones, and 125W bulbs with Sodium 110W ones; using combination of 250 sets of two-level capacity Balas: 250/150W, 150/100W while also using 150 sets of multi-level dimming devices. In alleys in residential quarters, nearly 3,000 CATN 80W bulbs were replaced with 2 by 23 or 2 by 18W compact bulbs. Besides, in 2010 the company also decided on the capacity for the lighting system and redesigned it in a reasonable way, fitting anew 4946 SON.1595 Compact lights and nearly 1800 LED and methane lights.

Thus in 2010, the company increased the average growth rate of the lighting system in the city by 10-15%, reducing the rate of low efficient light sources from 90% in 2000 to 11%;  increasing the rate of automatic control cabinets from 12% in 2000 to 91% in 2010.

To see more clearly the growth of the lighting with high efficiency but low electric energy consumption, lets look at the fact that the number of light sets has increased from 2.100 in 2000 to 9,585 at present; the average capacity of a light set in 2000 was 860W/set while it is under 478W/set now.

Another important factor for the reasonable lighting of the city at the public places and residential quarters as well as for the traffic is that the company has implemented solutions such as adjusting the switching time at 161 power supply stations according to 5 new modes, under which the Company increases amount of lighting time for residential quarters and reduces amount of lighting time for recreation places when unnecessary after 10 pm. The company has programmed the power supplying modes for 96 lighting stations in the city in line with seasonal weathers and usage purposes.

In parallel with the investment for the development of new lighting areas, the maintenance of the existing lighting equipment is regularly implemented so that problems could be minimized; the lighting sites, lamps and lampshades be cleaned thus increasing the brightness, and maximizing the efficiency.

Currently some traffic signals in the city are having problems and their operation is often disrupted. Does the company has any solutions to this situation under the program of power saving?

It is true that in recent past, a number of traffic lights in the city suddenly stopped working, thus affecting the traffic. This might be due to the defects in installation or caused by the power cut at the area for repairs of the grid. Our company is actively coordinating with the Binh Dinh Electricity Company and Quy Nhon Electricity Company in building a prioritized power supply source for the traffic lights system in the city. It is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2011.

Thank you very much! 

By An Nguyen