Eiffel Tower turns off lights early as Paris tries to cut energy costs – POLITICO

The City of Lights is turning off the lights. Just a little.

The Eiffel Tower will turn off its flashing lights an hour earlier than usual, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Tuesday. This symbolic measure is part of a larger plan to save energy as the city prepares for rising energy costs.

The lights of the iconic tower will turn off at 11:45 p.m. instead of 1 a.m. However, the change will be mainly symbolic: the hourly light flashes are already quite effective and represent only 4% of the monument’s energy bill, according to its operator.

Other measures will have more impact. Heating in city-run buildings will be lowered from 19 to 18 degrees Celsius, except in nurseries and retirement homes for the elderly. It will also start a month later than usual. Public swimming pools also lose one degree up to 26 degrees Celsius. Some public swimming pools in Paris and other French cities had already been closed by a private contractor due to rising prices. The lighting of public monuments will also be cut at 10 p.m., but the streetlights will remain on.

Hidalgo hopes to cut gas and electricity costs by 10%, or about 67 gigawatt hours. Paris’s efforts are part of a wider movement of cities across Europe trying to reduce their energy consumption, most of them starting with street lighting late at night.