The city of Karlovac (Croatia) gets more efficient public lighting thanks to Energy Performance Contracting
Fossil-free citiesOn 23 September 2023, the city of Karlovac signed an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) for the complete refurbishment of its public lighting, consisting of 9,083 luminaires, and the displacement of 152 public lighting cabinets located inside the DSO transformer stations.
The city has many different luminaire types such as road lighting luminaires, urban park luminaires, architectural floodlighting, public sport field lighting, and underpasses lighting. Within the Smart EPC contract the emphasis is placed on the preservation of the city’s visual identity.
Besides visual requirements, the contract also includes strict light pollution requirements such as max CCT, G-index, ULOR and maximum illuminances. After the refurbishment, the city lighting will be fully harmonised with the Croatian national law against light pollution.
The city also defined strict lighting quality requirements that are in accordance with the EN 13201 European standards and the national legislation.
When preparing for the EPC tendering, Karlovac carried out a detailed energy audit of the public lighting and defined lighting profiles (geometrical parameters) for every lighted area of the city. Special attention was put on the lighting of the conflict zones (Figure 3).
The costs of the data transfer (luminaires-software and vice versa) are included in the contracted fee.
The contract also accommodates the development of a management and monitoring software for public lighting which will have these features:
- Display of the public lighting elements static data (e.g. luminaire type and model, date of the installation, road classification);
- Processing and display of dynamic data obtained from luminaires (power, alarms, voltage);
- Archiving of collected data;
- Display and visualisation of public lighting system;
- Sending data to the luminaires;
- Alarming by logical conditions;
- Reporting on the key public lighting performance or other indicators;
- Controlling, supervision, and reporting for the Energy Performance Contract management.
The contracted private partner has two months to finish designing the public lighting refurbishment and to develop the conceptual design for the management and control centre.
The refurbishment phase, when all luminaires need to be replaced and all other works to be finalised, lasts 12 months from the moment of contract signing. After the completion of refurbishment, the usage phase starts, lasting for 10 years.
The project in figures:
| Before | After | |
| Luminaire power (kW) | 1.469 | 334 |
| Yearly energy consumption (GWh) | 6 | 1 |
| Electricity costs (EUR) | 900.000 | 135.000 |
| EPC yearly fee | – | 677.000 |
