text: Client: Sofia Municipality
  Country of assignment: Bulgaria
  Description of actual services provided:
  After winning a public procurement tender of the Sofia Municipality, Encon Services Ltd performed an energy investigation (audit) of the street lighting system of some of the major areas and the busiest boulevards of the capital and developed the business plan for potential investments. The objective of the energy audit was to identify the areas with the biggest electricity losses and excessive lighting against the current standards and to advise on introducing energy conservation measures which will significantly reduce the municipal lighting costs. The energy audit is a starting point for the Sofia Municipality, which intends to present the project business plan and to apply for funding under the KIDSF (Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund) for the renovation and replacement of street lamps and for setting up a centralized system for lighting management. The total cost of the project is EUR 4 million.
  The Encon Services team collected the necessary initial data for the audit based on the traffic level. Categorization of the main roads in the surveyed areas was made in accordance with the new standard БДС EN 13201, introduced by the European Commission. This standard limits the maximum brightness and illumination values for all classes of street lighting. This will reduce the costs of street lighting, while the excessive illumination will be avoided and the light pollution will be reduced. The proposed energy saving measures include replacement of the old lighting fixtures with appropriate energy-saving ones, in different regions. The introduction of the centralized lighting system will allow modern management. The implementation of these measures will save 5,561 MWh electricity per year. This equals 5,322 t CO2/year reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The cash equivalent from saved electricity for lighting will amount to 773,996 BGN/year. The maintenance and repair costs will be reduced by 363,958 BGN/year. Representatives of the leading companies in the field of lighting technology, such as Siemens, General Electric, ОSRАМ, Octa Light Jsc and Philips, were contacted during the audit. They presented their offers and expressed their willingness for cooperating with Encon Services in the future, in similar national and international projects. Moreover, leading specialists in lighting took an active part during the audit implementation. This project opens a new niche for Encon Services Ltd in the field of energy efficiency. On April 5 2012 the business plan concept was presented by Dr. Iliya Iliev to Sofia municipality. This event was attended by Mr. Lubomir Hristov, Deputy Mayor of Sofia city. Representatives of mass media were also invited to this presentation. Sofia Municipality supported the proposed concept and will be submitting the application for the KIDSF grant in the near future.