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Philips Gives Madrid's Entire City Lighting Infrastructure an Energy-Efficient Overhaul

In what is being called the world’s largest street lighting upgrade to date, Royal Philips has provided the government of the City of Madrid with 225,000 new energy-efficient lights and connected LEDs, renewing its entire street lighting system to support its ambition of becoming a Smart City.Specifically, the upgrade involves:

By Sustainable Brands | Published 9 years ago | About a 2 minute read

In what is being called the world’s largest street lighting upgrade to date, Royal Philips has provided the government of the City of Madrid with 225,000 new energy-efficient lights and connected LEDs, renewing its entire street lighting system to support its ambition of becoming a Smart City.

Specifically, the upgrade involves:

225,000 street lights replaced with Philips technology (including luminaires on avenues, streets, historic monuments and parks)
84,000 locally manufactured Philips LED lamps and luminaires, including 51,000 globe-shaped lampposts and 33,000 LED plates to be installed within existing lampposts
The remaining street lights will be equipped with more energy-efficient non-LED lighting solutions provided by Philips

Philips says the new lighting, which will save 44 percent in energy costs, will quickly pay for itself, providing Madrid with high-quality, ultra-efficient street lighting for a brighter, safer and smarter city at no additional cost to its citizens. The project has been conducted in collaboration with ESCO energy service companies hired by the Madrid city council through a public bidding process.

“This will be the biggest technological renewal ever seen in Madrid City, a change that will allow achieving some important goals — namely, reducing the city’s energy consumption thanks to energy-efficient luminaires, extending the lifespan of the city lighting and controlling light pollution by enabling the regulation of the intensity of light when and where it’s needed,” said Madrid mayor Ana Botella. “The new lighting installation allows us to make significant progress towards becoming a smart city, which is more sustainable and, in conclusion, a more livable city.”

The new city lighting system is controlled by a command panel, from which the intensity and duration of lighting across the city can be regulated according to need.

“The lighting renewal project in Madrid is a step forward in the creation of a city prepared for the future,” said Juan Sanabria, CEO of Philips Iberia. “Philips’s contribution towards Madrid’s efforts to become a smarter, safer and energy-efficient city takes account of the needs of citizens and consumers by providing a lighting infrastructure that offers benefits beyond illumination.”

Replaced lamps and lampposts will be recycled by Ambilamp in accordance with current regulations for the safe disposal of products containing heavy metals, such as mercury.

In March, Philips announced it had joined forces with Ericsson to launch a new connected LED street lighting model. Dubbed the Zero Site initiative, the partnership combines the benefits of mobile connectivity and LED lighting in a ''lighting-as-a-service'' model for cities. It allows city authorities to offer space within their connected light poles to network service providers for mobile broadband infrastructure, improving network performance in dense urban areas while providing high-quality, energy-efficient public lighting.