The switch to LED in road lighting

Our energy minister Taner Yıldız has gone before the public twice in the last year. He said there is a plan to switch road lighting to LED light sources, and that this will bring serious savings. (First story: http://kisalt.com/ledhaber1, second story: http://kisalt.com/ledhaber2)

The first story is dated 5 June 2012, and the details are these: replacing the existing 17 million street lamps, a saving of 500 million TL, a financing model still to be developed so that it puts no burden on the public purse, and a requirement to manufacture in Türkiye. That requirement doesn't mean you have to be a Turkish manufacturer. It means production has to happen in Türkiye. What confused me here was the Minister's line “There is no company in Türkiye that makes LEDs, but they will.”... He must mean LED chips. Otherwise, the chips do come from abroad, but many Turkish companies already make LED luminaires, street luminaires included. At this point I also thought of the Vestel group, which announced last year that it would invest in Türkiye together with Cree. But later I confirmed with Vestel that no such early work existed. All sorts of rumours reached me at the time too: that capital groups close to the government were already planning investments, even that the announcement was based on that... But later, the shared view I took from talks with many different manufacturers was that the process wasn't clear yet, and the subject cooled off for the time being.

The second story is dated 9 November 2012 and is shorter. The details: replacing 6-7 million street lamps, a saving of 350 million TL, and a pilot area already running in Ankara. Six days after this statement, I attended an extended industry meeting called “Energy Efficiency in LED Lighting and the Importance of Design”, organised by İSO (İstanbul Sanayi Odası, the İstanbul Chamber of Industry) and AGİD (Aydınlatma Gereçleri İmalatçıları Derneği, the lighting equipment manufacturers' association). At the meeting, Hayati Çetin, Deputy Director General for Renewable Energy at the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, gave a talk titled “The Place of LED Lighting Technologies in Energy Efficiency Policies and Strategies: Applications in Türkiye”. Mr Çetin shared where energy efficiency stands today and the targets for the future, and he also gave details of the pilot project mentioned in the second story. The meeting went on with other talks, and when the question-and-answer session started, I asked the first question. “Which brand's luminaires did this pilot use? Why this brand? And what happens next?” Mr Çetin said the luminaires were Philips, and that the request for the pilot area had also come from Philips. He added that they want to run the same kind of work with every brand that is interested, and that he wanted to use the occasion to send an open invitation to the industry.

Afterwards, over the meal, we had the chance to talk in detail. I passed on my reservations and my wishes. I spoke about two points. First, especially where LED is concerned, we need a standard, brand-independent setup where the light source is modular, that is, replaceable. Second, when this change moves from the motorways into the cities, it would help to get support from lighting designers too, and to make the process part of a general city lighting plan. In reply, Mr Çetin said they were only 4 months into the work, and that whatever happens, the process will be run transparently.

As things look, we will first wait for the results of this pilot, then follow developments for new pilots. The time frame and scope aren't clear yet, but the work will end in a new lighting regulation. In parallel, as the process moves on, financing models will come out that put no burden on the public purse. As we've seen elsewhere in the world, this change looks set to enter our lives quickly, with the Minister's backing too. As someone who always stands a step back when LED comes up, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. We'll all live through it and see.

Stay with the light until our next issue…

Emre Güneş
Professional Lighting Design Türkiye