Tianmu Insight | Behind power shortage: controversy over cityscape lights

Editor's Note:

After a 10-day restriction, all large industrial power supply and commercial power supply in Southwest China's Sichuan province have resumed on Aug 30, lighting cities in the province up again.

The shortage of power supply, caused by extreme heatwave in this region, has raised questions other than just power consumption itself. After getting used to blazed skyscrapers for years, some citizens in China begin to think whether it is necessary to spend this much on lighting the cityscape up. 

This year, China has experienced the hottest summer since 1961, with 17 provinces including Sichuan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shaanxi hitting record high average temperatures, according to National Climate Center. Lack of rainfall and large quantity of electricity consumption resulted in power supply shortage in some regions of the country.

Sichuan province and cities in other provinces like Wuhan in Central China's Hubei announced limited supply of power in August. Sichuan launched level I emergency response, the highest level, on Aug 21 to guarantee power supply for emergencies. On the same day, Shanghai announced that it would suspend the landscape lighting in the Bund, North Bund, and Xiaolujiazui area along the Huangpu River during Aug 22 to 23. 

While people are getting used to glamourous lightings of their cities in recent years, some have started to doubt the necessity of such lighting, aesthetically and economically.

The Bund with suspended landscape lighting. Photo/IC

Blazed skyscraper or extinguished city?

Raikes, a Shanghai native and a shutterbug, told Tianmu News that she used to live in light show area yet did not feel that "cool". 

"For me, symbols of Shanghai would not be Shanghai Tower or Oriental Pearl TV Tower with neon lights. It more lies in various art exhibitions in streets and lanes." 

Things might be different for tourists. On the night of power cut, some tourists in the Bund showed understanding of saving electricity, saddled with disappointment though.

The topic of power cuts in several major cities in China in late August sparked heated discussions on Chinese social networking platforms.

Weibo used @钱塘精选 posted pictures of Shanghai's CBD without LED on Aug 24, earning more than 16,500 reposts and 31,000 comments.

“Pics of Lujiazui without Led posted on Douyin”

Selected comments are as follows:

@做勇敢的虫虫: For comparison, this is what I took last week.

@blackacre: It's more tasteful removing the external decorative light.

@三瓣斋: Isn't this pretty? I think all unnecessary lights can be turned off, and it would be enough to have some light shows on New Year and other holidays to make it fun.

Browsing related hashtag and posts, netizens tend to be supportive of turning off unnecessary decorative lights.

On the evening of August 20, the Wuhan Yangtze River Light Show did not turn on as scheduled, showing an "energy-saving mode" to ease the pressure on electricity consumption in dog days. Above shows comparison of Wuhan Yangtze River with(right) and without(left) light show. Photos/IC and武汉黄鹤楼1985

Since August 21, the exterior wall lighting of Hongyadong Scenic Spot and Hongya Dicui Waterfall will be temporarily closed, and the public lighting in the scenic spot has been reduced by three-quarters, according to official. Above shows Hongyadong that night(left) and normal Hongyadong(right). Photo/People's Daily and IC

Jiang, a 34-year-old financial practitioner in Shanghai, told Tianmu News that the city shows real traces of human activities with the lights off and the light generated by the buildings themselves makes the city more advanced. 

"I have lived in the light show area of Shanghai for several years and I am not very aesthetically impressed by the night light shows. The degree of development of a city has nothing to do with how brightly the buildings are at night," said Jiang.

With the lights of the city extinguished, the city seems more advanced, said Wang, a 43-year-old travel photographer who has been to many metropolitans including New York, Sydney, Tokyo and Paris. 

"Metropolitans do not need to be decorated by too much lights. Builsdings' own lights can perfectly blend with the dark night," said Wang. 

Math behind the lights: how much energy can be saved

Shanghai issued an electricity consumption plan on June 20, predicting that the highest power load in Shanghai in 2022 to occur during summer electricity consumption peak in July and August. 

The highest load was predicted to be about 35 million kilowatts, up by 4.38 percent year-on-year.

The plan has generally divided electricity consumption into four grades to deal with the power gap. When the second grade was activated, electricity consumption of commercial users like cityscape lighting and outdoor adversiting will be restriction, saving up to 800,000 kilowatts of electricity, according to the plan.

Among this, shutting down landscape lighting and outdoor advertising during peak is expected to reduce load of 7,600 kilowatts in Shanghai.

According to data provided by the Chengdu Urban Management Committee, as of the evening of Aug 16, the city had turned off 2,344 landscape lighting spots (49,136 lights), and 956 outdoor advertising lighting. 

Since August this year, Chengdu saves about 11,698 kWh of electricity per hour on average by shutting down landscape lighting facilities that consume superabundant electricity.

"The power cut led to shutdown of landscape lighting and light shows in some provinces and cities, which may affect the industry lighting projects in cultural tourism in various places to some extent. But this would only be short-term. In the long run, the overall impact is not that unpromising." said Xie Junyan, senior engineer of Shanghai Electric Power.

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