This article connects the financial capacity of the public finance of the city of Alicante in order to provide street lighteing, between 1815 and 1874, with its repercussions on the process of industrialization. The work deals with the rules that regulate this service, forms of management and the technological impact of the industrialization. It comes to the conclusion that the insufficient financial level of this institutional consumer, caused a high debt. It was responsible, to a large extent, for the loss of capital of the individuals and the enterprises offering that service, especially the gas producing factories and therefore, could have an influence in the delay of the industrialization process.