The concourse and bus staging areas at the Seychelles International Airport (SIA) have switched to energy efficient lighting.
This is a project by the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) and the Seychelles Energy Commission (SEC) in line with the Government’s commitment for Seychelles to use 100% renewable energy by 2020.
The two parties will be the signing a memorandum of understanding on Thursday February 9th at the SCAA’s Headquarters at Pointe Larue.
Those two areas at the SIA is to be used as demonstrations sites to promote the benefits of energy efficient lighting. The demo is supported by the GOS-UNDP-GEF Resource Efficiency project.
The current lighting will reduce the overall energy consumption and it has been selected based on characteristics that allow for a wider light distribution pattern, longer life span of the fittings and better color rendering.
SCAA’s existing energy efficiency strategy dubbed the ‘’Eco Leap’’ makes the organisation the ideal partner for this significant project. The adoption of energy efficiency lights aims to reduce SIA’s carbon footprint by 33%, equivalent to 3297 kg CO2 per year with a potential of savings of 69% due to management of the system.
It is also expected to decrease utilities cost by SCR 264,114 per year, and it contributes to the overall passengers and public experience at the airport. A Return on Investment of 2, 91 is expected per year with a total savings of SCR 654,450 over a 10 year period.
The SCAA’s Chief Executive Mr Gilbert Faure said: “The SCAA is embracing a greener future and since the start of its Eco Leap project in 2014, it has set out specific objectives to place the environment at a central point in the airport community’s daily transactions.”
“The SIA consumes 3500 MW hour of energy annually and to help reduce this we are going investing towards ecofriendly (installations which will include lights, air conditioning systems, PV installations, Water Harvesting and energy efficient appliances over the next 3 to 5 years as energy efficiency is a crucial aspect of our commitment to reduce our operational cost and promote the International as a Green Airport” Mr Faure said.
Mr Tony Imaduwa, Chief Executive of SEC said, “’The site would be a place of learning for the general public and schools, as well as for other businesses and organizations, as the MoU also covers reporting, measurement and communication which will be made available through point of interaction at the airport, and through various websites and social media platforms’’.
The GOS-UNDP-GEF RE project has contributed US$20,000 (SR268, 625) to the demo and the SCAA has put in an additional US$15,100 (SR202, 811).
The demonstration project is supported with a communication plan which will target educational facilities as well as business and general public. The campaign will allow for the target groups to learn on the impact of the new lights, and gain knowledge on how effective these energy saving lights are. Adopting energy efficiency lights is usually one of the first steps in going green, the less costly option and easiest to implement.