Case study
28 June 2019
Led Beghelli for the Municipality (Italy)
New Beghelli street lighting system illuminates Casalvecchio Siculo and saves money
As of Monday, June 24, the entire municipality is lit up again, thanks to the support of the Esco that financed and implemented, with industrial partner Beghelli Servizi srl, the low-energy conversion of 358 public lighting systems, which are now old and highly energy-consuming, modernized and transformed through the most advanced LED technologies. Casalvecchio Siculo, in the province of Messina, is the first municipality to join the energy conversion initiative for public administrations launched by Solidarity and Energy, the Energy Service Company created through a partnership between the Messina Community Foundation and Sefea, the European Ethical and Alternative Finance Company.
The investments will generate savings on municipal energy consumption of just over 70 percent: while the cost of the energy bill for the Municipality of Casalvecchio Siculo before the intervention amounted to about 55,000 euros each year, after the conversion it will be reduced to just over 12,000 euros, to which, for the first nine years, the fee must be added to repay the investment made by Solidarity and Energy. Once the nine-year contract is over, for at least another six years, the guaranteed savings for the municipality will be about 42,000 euros per year.
The economic resources saved by the municipal coffers with the new facilities will be redirected to support human development programs in the area. In particular, support will be given to the creation of an association of Agrò Valley producers and short supply chains among the same producers and a network of businesses that have joined the proposal launched by the Messina Community Foundation, Solidarity and Energy, and the Messina Chamber of Commerce.
The inauguration of the new lighting system was preceded by a panel discussion on the theme of Social Innovation and Development of Territories, which took place in a symbolic place of Casalvecchio, the ancient Church of Saints Peter and Paul d'Agrò, illuminated for the occasion by the system donated by Solidarity and Energy.
During the event, in the presence of the mayor of Casalvecchio Siculo Marco Saetti, representatives of Solidarity and Energy and Beghelli, as well as citizens, merchants and components of other Sicilian administrations interested in replicating the project, the logo of the Agrò Valley Producers Association was also presented. And it is to the producers in particular, and to the community of the entire Agrò Valley in general, that the mayor of Casalvecchio Siculo, Marco Saetti, addressed: "We have immediately looked at this project with a positive spirit, not only because it allows us to save in energy to invest in the community, but above all because it offers us the possibility of overcoming the isolation experienced by our producers and expanding the networks of relationships in the municipality and the entire area. Now the call is for participation to get our excellent products onto Sicilian tables." "It is a model that we are interested in replicating and is clearly replicable," said Mirabella Imbaccari Deputy Mayor Filippo Granato.
There was also great satisfaction from industrial partner Beghelli, who was connected by telephone: "Freeing up resources to invest in the social sphere thanks to energy savings," Graziano Beghelli stressed, "is a model that my company would like to repeat tens of thousands of times throughout Italy. On the social front, on the other hand, expressing the symbolic value of the project was Francesco Marsico, national area manager of Caritas Italiana: "Only communities capable of being strong in terms of internal relations, strong with respect to the imaginary future, strong in caring for the territory, are able to prevent and respond to the issue of poverty. Environment, solidarity and economy build a more human future."
"The proposed mechanism," concluded Gaetano Giunta, secretary general of the Messina Community Foundation, "implements and enhances the logic of civil economy. Through social green economy actions, it makes it possible to re-orient resources, originally intended to support unproductive costs, toward the support of policies for the development of the territory, financing social and educational programs intertwined with welfare models and with evolved forms of social-economic dialogue between public institutions, industrial partners and actors of the inclusive social economy of the weak. The model is built in the logic of mutual benefit, co-responsibility and thus circular subsidiarity, in clear coherence with the spirit of the Republican Constitution."
During the event, in the presence of the mayor of Casalvecchio Siculo Marco Saetti, representatives of Solidarity and Energy and Beghelli, as well as citizens, merchants and components of other Sicilian administrations interested in replicating the project, the logo of the Agrò Valley Producers Association was also presented. And it is to the producers in particular, and to the community of the entire Agrò Valley in general, that the mayor of Casalvecchio Siculo, Marco Saetti, addressed: "We have immediately looked at this project with a positive spirit, not only because it allows us to save in energy to invest in the community, but above all because it offers us the possibility of overcoming the isolation experienced by our producers and expanding the networks of relationships in the municipality and the entire area. Now the call is for participation to get our excellent products onto Sicilian tables." "It is a model that we are interested in replicating and is clearly replicable," said Mirabella Imbaccari Deputy Mayor Filippo Granato.
There was also great satisfaction from industrial partner Beghelli, who was connected by telephone: "Freeing up resources to invest in the social sphere thanks to energy savings," Graziano Beghelli stressed, "is a model that my company would like to repeat tens of thousands of times throughout Italy. On the social front, on the other hand, expressing the symbolic value of the project was Francesco Marsico, national area manager of Caritas Italiana: "Only communities capable of being strong in terms of internal relations, strong with respect to the imaginary future, strong in caring for the territory, are able to prevent and respond to the issue of poverty. Environment, solidarity and economy build a more human future."
"The proposed mechanism," concluded Gaetano Giunta, secretary general of the Messina Community Foundation, "implements and enhances the logic of civil economy. Through social green economy actions, it makes it possible to re-orient resources, originally intended to support unproductive costs, toward the support of policies for the development of the territory, financing social and educational programs intertwined with welfare models and with evolved forms of social-economic dialogue between public institutions, industrial partners and actors of the inclusive social economy of the weak. The model is built in the logic of mutual benefit, co-responsibility and thus circular subsidiarity, in clear coherence with the spirit of the Republican Constitution."
Photo by Santi Smedile
