The Rennes metropolis did not wait for the soaring cost of energy to try to reduce its consumption. But the galloping inflation of electricity prices has pushed the community to push a little further its sliders for turning off public lighting. Competent on this file since January 1, 2017, the metropolis had already acted on the extinction of the streetlights in the depths of the night in several residential districts or areas of activity. After studying the impact of these measures on the safety of property and people, the community has just adopted a new scheme increasing the periods in the dark.
As of June 1, public lighting will be suspended from midnight to 5 a.m. (and even 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings) in the residential sectors mentioned in yellow on the following map. Business and industrial areas will also be plunged into darkness from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., apart from several adapted lanes.
These actions, combined with the replacement of more than 15,000 lighting points considered energy-intensive, should make it possible to reduce the energy consumption of public lighting assets by 40% by 2030. In November, Rennes Métropole voted an investment of 6 .9 million euros to modernize the control system and electrical cabinets for public lighting in all of its 43 municipalities, i.e. 82,000 light points.