Educational tool
VillaLuz, the village
that gets its stars back
A first-person simulator. VillaLuz is an invented village with a single 200-metre street: you walk it at night, adjust its lighting parameters and watch what happens to the street, the sky and the electricity bill at the same time.
The simulator needs a browser with 3D graphics. Even so, everything it calculates and why is set out below.
Not a game: a calculation
Every figure comes from applying Spain's energy efficiency regulation for outdoor lighting. Illuminance is computed point by point on a 25-centimetre grid, the burning hours come from the position of the Sun at this latitude, and the sky brightness from the flux that escapes upwards. What you see on screen is literally what is calculated: the ground texture is the illuminance map.
What the regulation says
ITC-EA-02 sets the reference level for each lighting class and forbids exceeding it by more than 20 %. ITC-EA-03 caps the flux that may escape skywards depending on the zone. ITC-EA-01 rates the installation from A to G. In Castilla y León, Law 15/2010 tightens things further.
The lesson
The optimum the simulator finds has more light points than the starting installation, not fewer: closer together, far weaker, shielded and amber. You win by lighting better, not by lighting less. And the last stretch of sky is only recovered by dimming when nobody needs the light.