Val-de-Ruz (NE) will become the largest municipality in Switzerland to carry out nocturnal extinction throughout its territory. Friday around midnight, the lampposts of Cernier, the last town in the town to do so, will be turned off.
“The town has made strong commitments in terms of sustainable development and energy savings. The nightly switching off of public lighting is a relevant element ”, indicated the City Council. Beyond the energy aspects, the extinction of public lighting in the middle of the night “includes a component linked to the environment, better living for the population and the preservation of wildlife”, he said. he adds.
The program was launched in Coffrane on May 10, 2019, gradually followed by other localities. Val-de-Ruz specified that the electricity supplier Groupe E played an important role in the implementation of this project. The latter reprogrammed one by one some 700 lights so that they go out from midnight to 4.45 a.m., while maintaining lighting around 76 pedestrian crossings.
Most important project
“The process also made it possible to modernize the lampposts that needed to be modernized. Due to the surface area and the number of inhabitants concerned, this project is the most important carried out so far by Groupe E in the field of public lighting ”, specified the municipality.
Since Friday, with the extinction of the village of Cernier, the lighting of all the localities of Val-de-Ruz will therefore be switched off in the middle of the night, with the exception of the pedestrian crossings which will remain on for safety reasons, on request from the Cantonal Service for Bridges and Roads. However, in the long term, the City Council is keen to install presence detectors on the masts lighting the pedestrian crossings in order to be able to completely shut down the Val-de-Ruz.
The municipality, which has 15 villages and 17,000 inhabitants, estimated that the project is triply beneficial, first of all in terms of energy savings (173,000 kWh / year), reduction in light pollution and better live off wildlife and humans. Light pollution is the second leading cause of the disappearance of flying insects.
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