Quy Nhon is a first-class city in Binh Dinh province and is also a city in the central region key economic zone; in the meantime it is an important transport link in south-central areas. The Quy Nhon Urban Lighting and Park Company is trusted by Quy Nhon City People’s Committee to get hold of more than 280km of public lighting, including 103km of lanes with 140 automatic control cabinets and more than 8,650 lamp sets (4,915 sets of sodium lamps, 640 sets of metalhalide lamps, 1,565 sets of compact lamps, 1,020 sets of high-voltage mercury lamps and 510 sets of LED lamps). The total designed capacity of these lamps is 1,378kW, with a luminance level averaging 18lux and 0.9cd/sq/m on the road surface.

Like other cities in the central region, Quy Nhon faces difficulties in raising capital sources, therefore, the expenditure for high-efficiency public lighting remains limited. Most of the investment capital for implementing public lighting projects comes from the local budget. Therefore, despite receiving attentive support from local governments, the meager capital amount can only satisfy part of the demand for carrying out new projects and overseeing the whole system, let alone developing high-efficiency technologies.

By considering energy conservation in public lighting both a responsibility and a interest of a city, and adopting the spirit ‘not saving public lighting, only saving energy’ the city does its utmost to establish a high-efficiency public lighting system.

However, reality shows that most of the investment capital concentrates into big project items while undue attention is paid to public lighting. So that right from 1999 Quy Nhon made efforts to outline a public lighting system detailed planning, considering it a vital legal framework for the establishment, approval and implementation of investment projects concerning the urban public lighting system.

Accordingly, it was important to select quality equipment, suitable lamp shades, light capacity, and utilize energy efficient power network structures, transmission lines, lighting sources and operational methods; these were important criteria for public lighting for roads and different city areas that were set in the development planning. During the course of implementation, the Quy Nhon Public Lighting and Park Company voiced proposals for effective execution of the approved planning. Therefore, besides the allocated budget, Quy Nhon City had raised a considerable capital amount for public lighting activities (more than 2,500 lighting points). More importantly, most of the lighting points have basically satisfied the high-efficiency lighting requirements.

For various reasons the city’s public lighting system mainly used high-pressure mercury lamps featuring low use efficiency and luminance coefficients with a single lighting level (90 percent of total). This had resulted in a huge power consumption and low lighting efficiency.

In 2001, Quy Nhon enacted new regulations on the management, operation and development of the city’s public lighting system that required the organization taking charge of operating and overseeing the public lighting system to keep close eyes on the system performance with a view to conserving the power in an efficient manner. Accordingly, efforts were made to upgrade the city’s public lighting system with a dual, triple lighting level. All the projects were strictly adhered to the approved planning to maximally conserve the energy used in public lighting.

Through frequent repairs and maintenances, the city has gradually brought into use the high-efficiency lighting sources: the 250W high-pressure mercury lamps were replaced by the 210W sodium lamps, and 125W mercury lamps with 110W sodium lamps (not replacing the ballasts). At lanes, the 80W high-pressure mercury lamps were replaced by the 2x23W, 2x18W, or 23W compact lamps and steps are being taken to be able to soon bring into use LED lamps. Other factors such as the lighting capacity or the lamp place were taken into account to best conserve the energy.

The director of the Quy Nhon Public Lighting and Park Company, Do Dinh Phuong said “Aware of the need for lighting at the alleys while the state investment was scarce, since 2000 the city has adopted a policy to call for both the state and local people supports for lighting up the alleys. The State, here the company, has joined hands with local governments to carry out surveys, designs and adopted the best power network plan, local people buy electric poles and transmission lines.”

Consequently, around 1,150 compact lamp sets and low-voltage lamps (12-70W) were used with a total lighting capacity of 50kW, bringing the light to 90 percent of the alleys. Local people also play an important role in supporting the public lighting company to ensure smooth operation of the public lighting system at the alleys.

Alongside investing in energy efficient lamps and lighting equipment, the Quy Nhon Public Lighting and Park Company has adopted a regular repair and maintenance mechanism to avoid power losses in the system. The lamp shades were cleaned periodically. These efforts help the company reduce the power loss rate by 0.37 percent, then saving the cost and considerable power amount.

Briefly speaking, the city’s public lighting system was harmonically placed to cover not only several hundred roads in inner city but also go deeply different residential areas, effectively serving people’s life and beautifying the city face such as the lamp system along Xuan Dieu Road and that in the Thi Nai Bridge, and diverse lighting systems at the Quang Trung Square or the Victory Monument that help enhance the glamour of the city of Quy Nhon at night.

By Hoang Quan