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Background

During the apartheid era, the South African government installed high-mast lighting to illuminate informal settlements at night. With support from the local NGO ‘Social Justice Coalition’ (SJC), the Khayelitsha community's grievances about the ineffectiveness of this lighting gained public attention in 2017. Inspired by this frustration, Stephanie Briers, a South African scholar in urbanist, conceptualized wall-mounted lights as an alternative public lighting technology to high-mast lighting. Together with Yael Borofsky, the researchers from ETH Zurich’s Institute for Science, Technology and Policy, began to explore this approach in the PJS informal settlement in Khayelitsha. PJS community leaders collaborated with the researchers, SJC, and local lighting engineer Keyaam Du Toit of ‘Majru Investments’ to install wall-mounted public lights powered by solar energy. The project aimed to collaboratively address community members' everyday concerns about safety and visibility at night, and to measure the impact of wall-mounted public lighting. This pilot project resulted in the installation of approximately 800 wall-mounted night lights across the PJS settlement, the impact of which was assessed as part of two doctoral research projects at ETH Zurich.

Approach

High-mast lighting often fails to provide adequate pathway lighting in informal settlements as it casts harsh shadows across the narrow alley ways between homes, creating dangerous blind spots for criminal activity at night. Furthermore, it is vulnerable to breakages during power outages and residents must sometimes endure long waiting periods for maintenance. Instead, the solar public lights in this project are installed at household level, providing consistent pathway illumination even during South Africa’s regular power outages. This approach enhances safety, visibility and community cohesion, making it more responsive and adaptable to the specific needs and challenges of informal settlements. The lights are fitted to improve resistance to theft and vandalism, and they switch on and off automatically using a daylight sensor to save energy. The initiative adopts a people-centred approach by directly involving community members in the planning, installation and maintenance of solar lights, fostering a sense of ownership and sustainability.

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Environmental Impact

The solar public lighting initiative reduces negative environmental impacts by utilising renewable solar energy, rather than drawing on the country's coal-intensive electricity grid. Although this has not been measured yet, the presence of public lighting may also decrease reliance on kerosene lamps and diesel generators for lighting, which decreases air pollution and the risk of fires in informal settlements.

Success Factors

Key factors in the success of the solar public lighting initiative include strong engagement with local government authorities and collaborative partnerships with the local community, non-governmental organisations and private sector companies. Community engagement and participation were also crucial, as they ensured that the solutions addressed the needs and concerns of the residents. Additionally, government policies supporting renewable energy and sustainable urban development created an enabling environment for the initiative to thrive.

Evidence

Residents report feeling significantly safer at night, especially around their homes. Although they could not adequately measure crime due to the relatively small size of the community, residents reported feeling as though crime had reduced and that they were more likely to go outside at night to use shared sanitation facilities. Approximately 800 solar lights have been installed, directly benefiting the community by improving nighttime conditions and creating local jobs through the involvement of residents in the installation and maintenance processes.

Evolution

Since the PJS solar public lighting project, three additional solar lighting projects have been implemented amounting to about 1500 solar lights across six communities. The projects were executed through collaborations with several other organizations who expressed interest in applying the same approach in other areas. This expansion was driven by positive community feedback and the successful demonstration of solar lights' effectiveness in improving safety and visibility. To further the project's reach and encourage collaboration, these organizations, the researchers, and other partners in the PJS project formed a community of practice called LightUp, whose mission is to further expand the lighting initiative to other communities, facilitate knowledge sharing on how to implement solar public lighting and to advocate for policy change to enable the scale up of this approach to more informal settlements. The approach has also shifted to include a focus on community management and maintenance. Today, a total of six informal settlements have access to wall-mounted solar public lighting.

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Challenges

Current challenges to the continuity and upscaling of the initiative include securing ongoing funding and support, as the original project relied on research funding and partnerships that need to be sustained or expanded. Follow-on projects have drawn on various sources of funding, including research funding, corporate social investment and donations. Additionally, scaling the initiative requires addressing logistical issues related to the installation and maintenance of solar lights in diverse and often challenging informal settlement environments. Ensuring effective community engagement and management, and overcoming resistance or operational hurdles related to maintaining new technologies and practices, also pose significant obstacles

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