Dublin City are sticking to plans to turn on the Christmas lights this year despite fears of power cuts as uncertainty surrounds energy supplies.
The soaring energy costs will not dull the millions of twinkling lights that heighten the Christmas atmosphere on the capital's streets this year. Dublin Town erects the street lighting on behalf of the local businesses, while Dublin City Council provides the projections, which they say are now powered by hydrogenated vegetable oil generators.
Each year Dublin Town spends €500,000 and six weeks erecting 5km of lights along up to 25 streets in the main shopping district of the city and this year will be no different, they promise. A spokesperson said: "Christmas won't be affected as far as we are concerned."
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The spokesperson explained that Dublin Town are "constantly upgrading and refurbishing our LED lights" to ensure they are energy efficient. "Any increases in electricity prices are really insignificant in running the illuminations along the main areas.
"However the lights are connected to the national grid so if there are any outages, they will go out, the same as all the businesses," they added. Each year Dublin Town on behalf of local businesses fund the street lights while Dublin City Council provide the winter lights building projections and Christmas trees.
"The show will go on. The only criticism that we receive each year is that we start putting them up 'too early'. Our contractors work nights and within limited hours so we have to start early to have them all in place by time they are turned on - which is always sometime in the second week of November."
A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said: "Dublin City Council intend to proceed with Dublin Winter Lights for 2022. In terms of its environmental management plan, the majority of the installations use high quality low power LED powered lighting.
"The projectors last year in Smithfield Square used new Laser Technology. The projectors used, drew a total of 13amps which is the equivalent of a standard domestic socket.
"Custom House power usage in 2020 was 40kw whereas last year with LED it was reduced down to 12kw power usage. Samuel Beckett Bridge is completely LED using a total of 2kw (equivalent of vacuum cleaner)," they added.
Dublin City Council recycle all materials and branding from year to year and store all the lighting in wooden crates each year and do not use any single use plastics. They added: "Last year , all fossil based diesel generators were eliminated from Dublin Winter Lights. Instead hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) generators are now being used which result in a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions, and the fuel is completely biodegradable."
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