City councilor Ute Kister from the Greens exclaimed “Krass” when Dominik Böhlein shows the next slide of his presentation in the council hall of the Wolf-Ferrari House in Ottobrunn. It shows two photos of a small Franconian town at night: the upper one shows brightly lit streets and houses, the lower one whitewashed the same place in a warm white light. The contrast is really stark and could soon become a reality in Ottobrunn too, because the municipal council is planning to convert all of the lighting in public spaces to LED technology.
Böhlein, managing director of Energievision Franken, is an expert in upgrading to modern technology and has already successfully advanced this in the municipalities of Poing, Neufahrn and Vaterstetten, for example. On Monday evening he urged the building committee of the Ottobrunner local council to switch to LED – “from an ecological and economic point of view,” as he said. But he also made it clear that the body approaching the subject of a corresponding motion from the Group of the Greens would inevitably have to deal with it in the not too distant future. Because, according to the energy expert, the so-called phasing out would ultimately result in only the most modern and environmentally friendly technology being permitted; In other words: The European Union is banning more and more obsolete lamps such as this year, for example, compact lamps. Ultimately, according to Böhlein, the EU does not want any other light sources on the market than those with LED technology.
Energievision Franken has already inspected a large part of the street lighting in Ottobrunn on behalf of the municipal administration in order to find out how great the effort would be for a complete retrofitting. According to Böhlein, this can be achieved in one to one and a half years; a few streets in the community have already been converted in the course of renovations or conversions. According to the Energievision, a little more than 2,300 of the more than 2,500 lights in the public space would have to be replaced in Ottobrunn; According to the calculations, however, the savings effect would be enormous: from currently around 535,000 kilowatt hours per year to just over 160,000. This would be a reduction of around 67 percent of the luminaires to be retrofitted. This effect is reinforced, said Böhlein, by the fact that LED lights have a significantly longer life expectancy than fluorescent tubes, for example, with which around 40 percent of Ottobrunn lights are equipped. If the fluorescent tubes only have a lifespan of around four years, modern LED lights mean it is 20 years, according to Böhlein. A “gigantic quantum leap” has taken place here during development. In addition, the LED lights could be dimmed at night and, unlike conventional lights, would not directly illuminate house walls if they were set individually, which leads to a significant improvement in the quality of life.
Mayor Thomas Loderer (CSU) spoke of a double advantage in terms of profitability, after all, on the one hand, there is eligibility for funding from both the federal government and the Free State, as well as economic and ecological sense. Loderer also promoted loan financing for the project. “It would be unusual to use your own funds,” said Loderer, also with a view to the strained budget situation of the municipality, which could worsen again due to the effects of the corona pandemic.
It should also be checked whether a remunicipalisation of the network and the masts can be considered; Currently, the street lighting in Ottobrunn is owned by Bayernwerke. Expert Böhlein did not want to anticipate this and only said that this was a political decision. Loderer, however, spoke out clearly against it; a transfer of the network into the ownership of the municipality had already made no sense with the electricity network, said the town hall chief. “I don’t have to be the network operator. I don’t see any advantage in this either, and we would have to upgrade our administration staff again,” said Loderer.
It is quite possible, however, that Ottobrunn will not only shine in warm white in the future, but that the light masts will also be used for other purposes: as intelligent street lights that can be used as information points, 5 G hotspots or charging stations for electric vehicles. The latter, Böhlein estimated, could theoretically be an option for around ten percent of Ottobrunn masts, but it is not always technically easy to implement because the necessary cables are often missing.