Signed by the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry, Rita Schwarzelühr-Suttern, it recognizes the city administration for its environmentally friendly electricity savings in this area as part of the ministry's National Climate Protection Initiative. A total of 584 tons of CO2 were saved in Salzgitter.
The requirement for applying for funding from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety is that the CO2 savings must be calculated over 20 years. In the case of the certification, 125 street lights in the inner city area of Salzgitter-Lebenstedt were retrofitted. As a result, the CO2 savings specified in the certificate were achieved.
The municipal project includes a whole package of measures. The street lighting in the city area has been continuously refurbished for years as part of maintenance measures. In doing so, the city administration is focusing on new and more efficient technologies that promise improvements in many respects (more environmental and climate protection, greater road safety, improved lighting quality and cost-effectiveness). This improvement in environmental protection, measured by the aforementioned CO2 balance, is financially supported with 20 percent funding from the Federal Ministry's National Climate Protection Initiative.
In the context of the city of Salzgitter's project, modernizing the lighting primarily means using efficient LED lights. Today, the challenge is no longer to compare the different light sources with each other, but to find the most suitable and economical lights from the immense range of different LED solutions on the market. With the use of such luminaires, there are also increasingly more intelligent control options, so that the city's employees can regularly check to what extent their use brings benefits. Fortunately, the city of Salzgitter is in a position to carry out both the technical lighting planning and the awarding and description of the corresponding requirements itself.
The inner city redevelopment project has been completed and has already been settled with the project sponsor. The next funding application has been submitted. This involves the modernization of around 60 lights on Konrad-Adenauer-Straße. This should save a further 226 tons of CO2 over the course of 20 years. The city of Salzgitter will continue to focus on climate and environmental protection in the future and examine the extent to which modernization measures lead to CO2 savings and further funding applications are possible.