Some of the biggest cities are saving millions of dollars a year by switching streetlights to ultra-efficient LED bulbs and even the smallest communities want in.
Over the past three years, 25 communities with less than 35,000 people have gotten on the bandwagon, saving a combined $25 million in energy costs while slashing the carbon emissions equivalent to 80 million cars. And that’s after installing only 5700 LED bulbs, says Crystal McDonald at the Department of Energy (DOE) in the Kansas City area.
The communities are in the Kansas/Missouri area where the Mid-America Regional Council has a "Smart Lights for Smart Cities" program.
But plenty of other cities around the country have or are following suit.
Boston, Baltimore and Los Angeles have finished city-wide lighting retrofits and New York City’s is in progress, converting all 250,000 streetlights. NYC expects to save $6 million a year on energy bills and $8 million a year on maintenance costs.
Of course the prime objective is to bring down emissions. The 35 million streetlights in the US consume about 1% of all electricity. If every city makes the switch, we could eliminate the need for 2.5 coal plants a year, notes former President Clinton.
DOE’s new Better Buildings High-Performance Outdoor Lighting Accelerator is working with state and local municipalities across the US to move in this direction. Learn more:
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