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News September 2010
Sixth-Round Projects of the Community Development Support Program Were Successfully Completed in Baikal Region
New lamps on the central square of Baikalsk
The two projects of this grant-round carried out in Baikal Region were based in the city of Baikalsk, Irkutsk Oblast, and in Ivolginsky Raion in the Republic of Buryatia.
Baikalsk is located in Sludyansky Raion in Irkutsk Oblast and has a population of 16,800. The Trans-Siberian Railroad passes through the city at a point removed 5,346 km from Moscow. Baikalsk specializes in the production of pulp and its primary employer is the Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Plant. Important areas of activity to facilitate local sustainable development are energy-efficiency, improvement of the urban environment and integrated solutions to environmental, social and economic concerns in this community. Thus, the project was targeted toward modernizing the street lighting systems, which involved, in particular, replacing mercury lamps DRL 250W on the central square and city streets with 100W safe energy-efficient sodium lamps DNa3.
As a result of this project 68 mercury lamps were replaced and an additional inventory of all street lighting was conducted during which damaged and faulty lamps were repaired, and power meters and light relays were installed.
According to preliminary estimations, the annual consumption of power will decrease by 60-63% or by 57,000 kW/h. The street lighting system will work more efficiently and reliably because the new lamps save energy as compared with the old mercury lamps and have a longer service life (1600 hours instead of 1200). The reduction of energy consumption will account for less municipal spending of 65,000 rubles a year.
The environment in the city was improved as a result of the replacement of mercury lamps. The new lamps do not emit mercury vapor. Besides, the luminous efficiency of the new lamps, which consume less energy, is 25-30% higher than that of mercury lamps. The intensity of illumination of the city’s squares and streets has improved considerably, which makes traffic safer and reduces crime. The head of the city militia in his information letter confirms that the new lighting helps to lower the crime rate.
Ivolginsky Raion is situated in the central part of the Republic of Buryatia on the left bank of the Selenga River and has a population of 32,900, whose chief occupation is timber logging. This results in a permanent reduction of forests in this region. The priority objective of local economic and social development is the utilization of wood waste by local energy producing facilities, creation of new jobs (the unemployment level here is 12%, which is the highest in the Siberia Federal District) and support and development of small-sized environmentally responsible businesses.
The goal of this project was to create an environmentally oriented business of utilizing wood waste through hogging and, thus, turning it into fuel. Under this project, waste grinding equipment was acquired and installed, and in September it was commissioned and now new fuel is being supplied to local boiler plants that service institutions funded by the municipal budget.
Six new jobs were created and the personnel were trained to operate and service the new grinding and drying equipment. Information about this project was publicized in the local newspapers and a meeting was held with representatives of the raion small businesses to share experience in utilizing logging waste – this will promote the dissemination of obtained experience.
It is expected that the annual utilization of 4,000 cubic m of waste after the shift from coal to wood waste will help improve the environment by reducing the rate of tree felling, making areas less debris-strewn and fire hazardous, lowering pollutant emissions by 60% and decreasing background radiation.
Installed waste grinding equipment in Ivolginsky raion
