We are interested in finding the power consumption of the public lighting in Spain and to compare it with those of European countries. The spanish budget for public lighting shows an extraordinay grow which translates to an increase of light pollution. Our research is performed with official statistics on electrical power and analyzing images of the Earth at Night taken from satellites.

Official statistics on electric power consumption on public lighting for the past years are not reliable. The estimated values, using DMSP-OLS data, is represented with a red dashed line. The growth is around 4% per year.

A. Sánchez de Miguel et al.
"Evolution of the energy consumed by street lighting in Spain estimated with DMSP-OLS data"  JQRST (2014)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2013.11.017

Evolution of the amount of light detected from space (1996-2006) with radiance calibrated data from DMSP-OLS satellite. The display scale is logarithmic and coded in units of W/m2/sr/micron

• "Contaminación Lumínica en España 2012/Light Pollution in spain 2012" (UCM e-print)
  Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel, Jaime Zamorano, José Gómez Castaño, Sergio Pascual, Maria Angeles López Cayuela, Jesús Gallego, Francisco Ocaña, G Martín Martínez, Carlos Larrodera, B Tinao, S Oré, MF Palos, Peter Challupner
  "X Reunión Científica de la Sociedad Española de Astronomía (SEA), 9-13 July 2012, Valencia (Spain). (En prensa)"

• "Contaminación lumínica en España 2010"   (UCM e-print)
  Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel, Jaime Zamorano, Berenice Pila-Díez, Jesús Rubio, Roque Ruiz, Isabel Rodríguez y Alicia González
  "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics VI" Proceedings of the IX Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Madrid, September, 2010

• "Light pollution in Spain. An european perspective"    (UCM e-print)
  Sánchez de Miguel, A. & Zamorano, J.
  "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V" Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Santander, July 7-11, 2008

• "Differential Photometry Study of the European Light Emission to the Space"
  Sánchez de Miguel, A. in Starlight: A Common Heritage, Proceedings of the Starlight 2007 Conference, La Palma (PDF)

Read Spain the most light polluting country in EU
Oficial press release: http://www.ucm.es/cont/descargas/documento36329.pdf