We have all gotten used to having
lights to guide us down the road or down the sidewalk, but do you know how much
electricity it takes to light that path? Many American’s have no idea what it
takes to keep common area lighting going, but your cities and counties do. If
you were to ask them how much it costs they would most likely state…TOO MUCH!
Cities have held back on making the leap
to LED streetlights, since it comes with a pretty hefty price tag. Many city
councils and or county supervisors get hung up on the price tag and vote no,
but there are many more added benefits to making the change than one would
think. When streetlights are upgraded to LED streetlights cities will gain more
than energy savings and energy usage. They will be improving light pollution,
wasted lighting and public safety. Many may doubt that the items listed above
can be improved with just lights, but I am here to prove it to you!
Most of the older streetlights
that you see today were installed in the 1970’s and give off an orange hue. The
hue is caused by the lights containing sodium, which takes a lot of energy to
keep lit. Estimates show that for outdoor
parking and roadway lighting the US spends around $10 Billion dollars’ each
year. That same amount that goes to those outdoor lighting structures would be
able to power around 6 million homes. [i] Besides the conservation of energy look at the dollars and cents that would be
saved. That is a large chunk of money that a city or county could put toward a
large improvement project.
When a city decides to make the
switch to LED streetlights they would be able to use 60% less electricity. One
such success story was featured in SF Bay. The City of San Jose is retrofitting
63,000 of their streetlights by the year 2016. [ii]
It is one of the biggest lighting retrofits in the country. The city is doing a
two part retrofit with the first part consisting of 18,100 lights and comes at
a cost of $10.5 million. The city is working with PG&E on their
streetlights program, which will provide around $900,000 in rebates once all is
said and done. With the incentive taken into consideration the city will cut
the big price tag down to $9.6 million. Not too shabby of a savings in my book.
Besides the money and
energy savings cities can improve light pollution and wasted light as well. Having
LED streetlights allows the lighting to be directed to where you would like the
lighting to go to.[iii] Along
with having directional light LED’s are able to deliver a more even light to
the area being lit. With more even light you do not get the glowing sensation
like you would with the older orange lights.
Now when it comes to improving
public safety street lights help to improve pedestrian safety and traffic
safety. With well thought out plans of street lights pedestrian can become more
visible along the sidewalks as well as in the crosswalks or roadways. When it
comes to traffic safety improved lighting would be a no brainer. With well-lit
roadways and intersections you have improved visibility of vehicles. Most of
your high lit areas would be those that have high traffic, high volume and
dangerous or blind curves.
Though city officials would
receive praise for making such large investments and upgrades they can also
receive national recognition. Just this year President Obama launched the Presidential
Challenge for Advanced Outdoor Lighting. This challenge is to help push
municipalities to make the upgrade to better outdoor lighting. For those cities
and local governments that would like to gain that recognition and complete the
work they will be listed on the white house partners listing as well as gain press
attention.
[i]
“LED Outdoor Lighting: A $6 Billion Annual Savings Opportunity”, Mar. 18, 2015,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2015/03/led-outdoor-lighting-a-6-billion-annual-savings-opportunity
[ii]
“San Jose Flips Switch on LED Streetlights”, Mar., 18, 2015, http://sfbay.ca/2015/02/11/san-jose-flips-switch-on-led-streetlights/
[iii] “Improving
Efficiency in Municipal Street and Public Space Lighting”, Mar., 26, 2015, http://www.efficiencyvermont.com/Docs/for_my_business/lighting_programs/StreetLightingGuide.pdf