{"id":24763,"date":"2018-02-14T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/?p=24763"},"modified":"2025-12-12T00:40:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:40:58","slug":"a-history-of-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2018\/02\/a-history-of-light\/","title":{"rendered":"A history of light: why LED lights are the path to smart cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first electric street lights in Portugal<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Pina Manique<\/a>, chief superintendent of police and founder of Casa Pia<\/a>, carried out a small experiment with street lighting<\/strong> in Portugal between 1780 and 1790, when he required shopkeepers to provide and pay for their own street lamps. This gave rise to a very limited public street lighting system using gas, petrol and oil lamps, with a person responsible for lighting them when night fell and putting them out at daybreak.<\/p>\n

\"Terreiro<\/a>

Terreiro do Pa\u00e7o, highlighting the equestrian statue of D. Jos\u00e9 I and the lighter of lamps, Municipal Archive of Lisbon, AFML – A12592<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Night watchmen<\/strong> (locally called serenos<\/em>) were very common in the past. Before the advent of electric street lights, public lighting worked because night watchmen used long sticks to light the lamp burners and put them out.<\/p>\n

Electric street lighting in Lisbon first appeared in October 1878, when King Louis I of Portugal offered the City Council six Jablochkoff arc lamps<\/strong> which had been used for the first time on 28 September of that same year in the citadel of Cascais, for the birthday celebrations of Prince Charles.<\/p>\n

These lights were the same as those used in the square outside the Opera in Paris. The king gave orders to buy six lamps for trialling in Portugal. Up until them, both public and private lighting in Portugal used gas supplied by the \u00a0Companhia de Gaz Lisbonense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After the first trials, however, electric lamps were not installed throughout the city given the costs and resources involved, an expenditure which the autarchy at the time was not prepared to make. Moreover, relations between the Chamber and the Lisbon Gas Company were tight to say the least, with a gas supply agreement in force until 1880.<\/p>\n

\"map<\/a><\/p>\n

This resistance to the introduction of electric lighting lasted until 1887, with the gas company arguing that caution was called for and this new energy should first be closely monitored; that the cost of buying the new machinery was very high and the concessionary system required to be made with the Chamber very complicated, as the gas network had recently been extended in urban centres such as Bel\u00e9m and Olivais.<\/p>\n

Given the difficulties encountered with the Lisbonense gas company, in October 1887 the City Council signed a 30-year agreement with the Belgian company S.A. d’Eclairage du Centre<\/em> for supplying gas to the city, on condition that they provide electric street lighting in the Avenida da Liberdade and in the Restauradores square for the same price as the rest of the gas lighting. In that same year, the company \u2013 which changed its name S.A. Gaz de Lisboa<\/strong> \u2013 built a gas plant in Bel\u00e9m, extended the piping network, and installed thousands of gas lamps in the city, thus triggering a large growth in the field of street lighting and paving the way for the introduction of electricity.<\/p>\n

And so there was light\u2026 electric light.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In May 1889, electric lighting was finally installed in some key areas of Lisbon, drawing large numbers of people attracted by novelty and progress, and sparking comparisons with the modern city of Paris. It marked the end of street lamps as they had been known on the streets of Lisbon.<\/p>\n

\"Electric<\/a><\/p>\n

On 10 June 1891, the old Lisbonense gas company merged with S.A. Gaz de Lisboa to create CRGE<\/strong>, Companhias Reunidas Gaz e Electricidade<\/a>, which over the next 75 years gradually developed, expanded and distributed electricity in Lisbon, both for private and public lighting. In fact, the last gas lamp was \u201cput out\u201d in 1965.<\/p>\n

And so began the process of electrifying the whole country<\/strong>, a process which would not be completed until 25 April 1974, when electricity finally reached all of the country\u2019s rural areas.<\/p>\n

A more energy-efficient public lighting system<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Public lighting in Portugal is largely the responsibility of town councils, who have opted to include public lighting within the power distribution concession. In the event of changes to the public lighting network, these must be approved by the concessionary, and there is a standard system created by the concessionary company itself for the authorisation of agents, both installers and equipment manufacturers. This has the advantage of guaranteeing the quality of such agents, but it is otherwise a very restrictive system in terms of options, and very much in the interests of the actual concessionary company.<\/p>\n

Today, concessions for electricity distribution are provided to a single operator, EDP<\/a> (Portuguese Electricity) Distribui\u00e7\u00e3o, which is the holder of the concession for exploitation of the National Distribution Network (RND stands in Spanish for Red Nacional de Distribuci\u00f3n<\/em>) for medium-voltage (MT stands in Spanish for Media Tensi\u00f3n<\/em>) and high voltage (AT stands in Spanish for Alta Tensi\u00f3n<\/em>) electricity, as well as local concessions for distribution of low voltage (BT stands in Spanish for Baja Tensi\u00f3n<\/em>) electricity at municipality level.<\/p>\n

The first concessions began in the 1980s, with further public tenders envisaged for 2019 for new concessions. It is expected that from 2019 there will be openings for other operators, as defined in article DL 31\/2017 of 31 May, which approves the principles and general regulations relating to the organisation of tendering procedures for the grant, by means of a contract, of concessions for exclusive exploitation of local municipal low voltage electricity distribution networks.<\/p>\n

\"Remains<\/a><\/p>\n

The fact that there is a market which is a virtual monopoly for a single operator has contributed to a very obsolete street lighting network in Portugal. History, however, has shown us that evolution can be delayed but not stopped, and Ferrovial Servi\u00e7os is an example of this, having installed street lighting for the Vouzela town council. We have been in charge of the management of the public street lighting energy efficiency contract in this municipality since XXXX, and have changed the whole network to LED lights, given that of the close to 7,000 light points making up the system, some 4,000 were at the time still mercury vapour lamps. Mercury is a highly harmful element, both for the environment and for public health. In fact, it is a technology the use of which has been discouraged for many years now, and which is actually banned<\/strong> in the EU since 2015<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Institutional video of the Vouzela town council to present the new LED lighting:<\/p>\n