Case Study 3 – Dial4Light
Case Study 3 – Dial4Light
Areas of impact: Environmental and social
Social enterprise location: Dorentrup - Schwelentrup, Lemgo, Rahden - all in Germany
Short description of activities:
An eco-friendly system now in place in parts of Germany allows people to control streetlights with their mobile phone. The system called Dial4Light lets mobile-phone users turn on streetlamps only when they actually need illumination.
The service requires users to call the Dial4Light number and enter a route code. Once confirmation of the request has been received, the relevant lights turn on for up to 15 minutes before automatically turning off again. This means that street lighting (one of the largest contributors to public sector energy consumption and associated costs) is illuminated for a far shorter time than it would be otherwise.
Why it is a social innovation:
Dial4light started as a project that aimed to balance the social need for street lighting with the need to reduce its environmental and economic impact
Many communities in Germany turn off their street lighting system at 2300hrs to save energy and funds. Dial4Light applies technological innovation and service design thinking to provide a ’light on demand’ service that considers community safety (people want streets to be lit when they are on them) and reduced economic and environmental impact.
What began as a project has now become a product; Dial4light systems have been rolled out to several other locations within Germany and the potential to meet similar demands elsewhere in the world.
This is an example of social innovation (innovation in pursuit of social and environmental benefit) through social design.
What is its design aspect?
Dial4light delivers a service design solution (light on demand) via software and hardware design. Specifically a mobile application that allows you to use your mobile phone to connect to a GSM-modem in the junction box of those lights users wish to be switched on.
The required lights are selected using a six digit route code input by the user. The route codes can be found on an online database or are posted on the streetlights.
Main actors and interactions (including stakeholders, networks, services and revenue streams):
- The public lighting provider (system implementation and route code dissemination)
- The lighting manufacturer (integration of GSM-Modem into the switching box)
- The general public who request the service
- Inventor Dieter Grote cooperates with public services to bring the service to the market working with project partners VoiceWebOne, G & L team, Nettbiz, Funk Technik, A & H Meyer
Social Impact:
The system accommodates the needs of several user groups including: emergency services can illuminate the scene, taxi drivers can switch on the lights for their passengers, joggers can turn on the floodlights at sports fields in the evening.
The overall social impact is one of community safety; people feel safer when streets are well lit.
Economic Impact:
Dial4Light routes are essentially free of charge; users do not pay for the cost of lighting - only the standard tariff for use of their mobile phone. To minimise the call charges Dial4Light has deliberately decided on the use of a land line number as this frequently incurs no or very low costs from mobile phone service providers.
Despite minimal cost to individual citizens, the economic savings for the public purse are significant; the German towns, which have implemented this system, have reported 25 per cent reductions in their energy bills.
Environmental Impact:
According to the Campaign for Dark Skies, there are 7.5 million street lights in the UK with a mean power of 100W (ILE figures). These lights are said to typically waste 15 per cent of their light by projecting it directly upwards, above the horizontal.
Up to a further 15 per cent of the light is spilled where it is not needed or not wanted. This ‘wasted light’ amounts to about 131 kW hr of wasted energy, which equates to 120 Kg of CO2 per year per streetlight. Multiply this by the 7.5 million streetlights in the UK and a total of 830,000 tonnes of CO2 pollution is produced for the energy wasted by streetlights alone.
These figures deal only with ‘misplaced’ illumination within the streets of the UK; consider the greater impact of all the lighting which is ‘misplaced’ in the illumination of streets when there are no people on them to benefit. Since Dial4Light means that street lighting is only illuminated when requested by the public it reduces ‘wasted light’ and the associated carbon emissions.
Links
www.dial4light.de/dial4light/static/en/home.htm