An ecological feasibility study for developing sustainable street lighting system
Introduction
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) having plentiful hydrocarbon resources is one of the world's leading oil producer and exporter (Gelil, 2015). At the same time, KSA was also the 12th largest primary energy consumer in 2013. The energy statistics of KSA over the last years reveal that electricity demand has increased at the rate of 5.8% from 2006 to 2010 (Zafar, 2014). Currently, about 60% of energy is provided by the petroleum, while natural gas fulfills the remaining energy provision requirements. The KSA has 55 GW installed capacity of electricity generation, which is planned to be increased to 120 GW by 2032 (KACARE, 2012). The per capita energy consumption in KSA is more than twice the global average, although it is lower than in other Gulf States. This high energy demand is putting immense load on economy as well as on environment. It is necessary to adopt advanced energy conservation methodologies to minimize the impact of high energy consumption in KSA (OECD/IEA, 2015).
In KSA almost 80% of the total energy production is consumed by the buildings sector. This energy is mainly consumed for air conditioning, illumination and operation of other electrical and electronic devices (SEEC, 2013). The main consumer of electricity having 50% electricity consumption is air conditioning (Waide et al., 2006). The energy consumption for illumination purposes covers about 23%–40% of the total energy consumption in the world (ICAEN, 2016). In accordance to the assumption that 19% of world's electricity is consumed for illumination purpose, the estimated value of electricity consumption in 2016 was 17,982 TWh (Karlicek et al., 2017).
It has been estimated that potential electricity savings of 65% could be achieved, which could reduce the world's total electricity consumption from 19% to 7% (Brown, 2011). The most significant electricity saving potential among the lighting sectThe british numbering system has been ors has residential lighting (79%) and the least significant is the outdoor stationary lighting (40%) (Brown, 2011). The installation of advanced lighting solutions instead of traditional lighting devices can save up to 40% of illumination energy (Noortek, 2015). A considerable reduction in the electricity consumption can be achieved by mounting efficient lighting system in accordance to domestic requirements. The shift to compact fluorescent (CF) lamps, metal halides and LED instead of incandescent lamps is step forward on the way to achieve energy efficiency in lighting systems (Shahzad et al., 2015).
Recently, energy efficiency and light quality have significantly improved due to the advancements of related technologies. The perpetual growth in population and economic development is leading to the intensification of urbanization. This increased urbanization is resulting in the steady expansion of public infrastructure as well as increased electricity demand for illumination at the public places (Shahzad et al., 2016). A substantial amount of energy can be saved, by installing eco-efficient lighting solutions in the public areas, which will positively influence both national economy as well as environment (Abdul Hadi et al., 2013).
A number of studies have been performed related to life cycle ecological assessment of lighting systems, which have been mostly limited to specific geographic locations (Bergesen et al., 2016). Such examples are economic and environmental analysis of lighting technologies in residential dwellings in Cameroon (Enongene et al., 2017), university campus lighting evaluation using the model of the triple bottom line considering economic, environmental and social impacts (Lindstrom and Middlecamp, 2016), estimation of benefits due to energy efficiency improvements in street lighting systems in Indonesia (al Irsyad and Nepal, 2016), simple life cycle assessment (LCA) of household lighting solutions in China (Clarke-Sather et al., 2016), technical, economic and environmental evaluation of smart street lighting in Uppsala municipality (Gidén Hember et al., 2017), potential of LEDs in reducing lighting energy use and CO2 emissions in Finnish households (Tetri et al., 2014), LCA of ceramic metal halides and LED streetlights in Abu Dhabi (Abdul Hadi et al., 2013) and other.
Several studies have also dealt with comparison of different lighting solutions, such as incandescent, compact fluorescent, fluorescent and LED (Clarke-Sather et al., 2016), LED and high-pressure sodium (HPS) (Tähkämö and Halonen, 2015), LED and metal halide lamps (Kostic and Djokic, 2014), various lighting technologies (De Almeida et al., 2014), HPS, LED and incandescent (Zhang et al., 2017), incandescent, CF and LED (Shahzad et al., 2015), HPS, metal halides, induction and LED (Dale et al., 2011) and other.
For environmental evaluation of lighting technologies different impact assessment methods exist, and different levels of details and assumptions are applied. In order to perform LCA, different methods have been used in existing studies, such as reduction of CO2 emissions (Tetri et al., 2014), Eco-Indicator 99 (Abdul Hadi et al., 2013), Sustainable Process Index (SPI) methodology (Shahzad et al., 2015), modified CML 2001 method considering 16 environmental categories (Tähkämö et al., 2013), CML 2001 method considering 12 categories (Tähkämö et al., 2014), 15 environmental indicators associated with air/climate, water, soil and resources (DOE, 2012), global warming potential (GWP), ecotoxicity and respiratory effects (Dale et al., 2011) and other.
The literature review about life cycle assessment of light sources has shown that the use phase of lighting devices causes maximum environmental impacts of the overall life cycle. The manufacturing process is the second significant contributor to the overall ecological pressure. Therefore, efficient illumination devices such as CF and LED lamps or luminaires exhibit lower life cycle impact in comparison to conventional light sources, e.g. incandescent lamps (Tähkämö et al., 2013).
The literature review reveals that most of the LCA studies compared the environmental impacts of incandescent lamps and CF, while only few of them compared other light provision technologies (Tähkämö et al., 2014). Also, only a few LCA studies exist in the literature that analyse different technologies used in road lighting (Tähkämö and Halonen, 2015). Most of the studies have explored the environmental assessment of different technologies using either CO2 emissions or Greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint, or using several environmental indicators.
The aim of this study is extend the LCA studies of different technologies used in road lighting by using composite criterion of environmental sustainability and apply it to a specific case study. LCAs of HPS, CF and LED luminaires are performed using SPI methodology to find out the most suitable and environmentally-friendly street lighting system in King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The system boundary includes luminaire manufacturing, packaging, transportation for shipping and energy production during its use, while the end-of-life phases are not considered. Furthermore, the effects of different alternative energy sources and the impacts of geographical locations on the environmental impact of selected luminaries are studied.
Section snippets
Sustainable Process Index
The Sustainable Process Index (SPI) is utilized to conduct ecological evaluation of the given system. SPI was developed by Krotscheck and Narodoslawsky (1996) following the basic principles of ecological footprint. The normative behind the development of SPI methodology is well explained by two general principles of sustainability (Maier et al., 2017), resource acquisition and emissions related to anthropogenic activities, to fulfill human needs and should not overshoot Earth's natural income.
Ecological evaluation of selected luminaires
The study performs LCA analysis of different luminaries, such as HPS, CF and LED. The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis is performed by the use of the SPI methodology.
Conclusions and future research
The environmental evaluation performed for the street lighting system has shown that the most important factors that contribute to ecological pressure of the lighting services are: the energy efficiency of the use phase, life time of lighting device and light flux efficacy. This has been highlighted by the use of renewables as well as fossil-based energy systems to fulfill light requirement.
The analysis revealed that 87%–96% ecological impacts for LED and HPS luminaires are due to the energy
Acknowledgment
We are very grateful to the Ministry of Higher Education Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) in King Abdulaziz University for providing funds to complete this work.
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