LED Street Lighting - Notable Installations

LED street lights have been installed or announced for installation in several large cities as well as smaller cities throughout the world and it started to be used more and more. The United States Department of Energy has available a number of reports on the results of many pilot projects for municipal outdoor led street lighting. Cities that have announced their intention to install LED street lights include Worcester, Boston  and Cleveland.

Cities that have installed at least some LED street lights include:

Varna, Bulgaria, A2 Highway

Varna has switched on the first road segment in Bulgaria with LED lamps for street lighting. The lamp line includes 186 LED lamps, Class A, installed along the 3.8 km road between the Airport and the city.

LED lamps were supplied by the Interservice Uzunovi Plc – a company which is an authorized distributor for Bulgaria of the Japanese technology giant SHARP. This is the first project for LED street lighting equipment of the Japanese company in Europe.
With this LED lighting installed, Varna became the first city in Bulgaria, which has eco-friendly lighting, which is also significantly reduces the cost of the municipality and will significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and the small amount of harmful materials in the production cycle of lighting will prevent environmental pollution.
LED street lamps are one of the recent product lines of SHARP. Manufacture of LED lighting for street and park lighting is the result of almost 40 years of research activities of the Japanese company.

Toronto and Welland, Canada

The City of Toronto was the first city in Canada to install LED Street Lighting in 2006 at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. The second municipality to join the LED City Program in 2007 was City of Welland after the installation of 47 LED lights on a public roadway. Other Canadian cities didn't install LED lighting for streetlights because of the small information that they had about led technology, and the state of early LED lighting and street lights(future advancements and development). After the Toronto and Welland projects, municipalities began to take notice of LED lighting. At present, a large number of municipalities in Canada are undertaking some type of LED lighting project. The LED lighting revolution has arrived in North America and municipalities are now having large replacement programs.

The City of Toronto has about 160,000 streetlights, and if these were all changed to LED lamps the city would save $6 million a year in electricity costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18,000 tonnes, the equivalent of removing 3,608 cars from the streets.

The preliminary investment needed to buy and install the LED streetlights would be recouped from both the electricity savings and lower replacement and maintenance requirements.

The streetlights are manufactured by Leotek Electronics, and cost around $1,200 each. They were supplied by electromega, Canada's leading distributor of parking control and traffic control equipment, including LED traffic signals and LED area and street lighting.

Each streetlight in the installation has 117 LEDs to produce the same intensity as a traditional streetlight. The LED fixtures are installed along the south side of Princes' Boulevard, while the older, conventional streetlights are along the north side. The light qualities are similar, yet the LEDs consume half the electricity, and last times longer and they do not need so much maintain.

"This is a thrilling project," said Peter Love, Ontario's Chief Conservation Officer. "greenTbiz, TABIA and their partners have illuminated new ways for cities to help the environment, while saving electricity and funds. This is a great example of how leadership in technological advancement and innovation can benefit all Ontarians."

The City of Welland has undertaken several projects with LED lighting from Roadway Lighting to Downtown Streetscaping lighting and Solar Powered Flashing Beacons. The City of Welland continues to work at providing and inquiring in to the best products that will be beneficial to the quality of life for the residents of Welland. Recently, the City partnered with Niagara College Photonics Department to undertake and Unbiased Evaluation of HPS vs LED streetlights.

Due to this partnership, the City and College are committed to continuing evaluation and to assist other municipalities in similar projects.

In the city of Welland installation first began with the replacement of traffic signals through partnership with local utility. This traffic signals reduced energy consumption by 66%.

As a result of Traffic Signal success and savings in energy, City of Welland began exploring LED streetlighting. 2007 the City of Welland became one do the first municipalities in Canada to relamp a public roadway with 50 LED Fixtures. The 150 watt HPS fixtures were replaced with 47 watt LED fixtures.

City of Welland has changed its Engineering Standards to include only the use of LED streetlights. Since initial project, City currently has over 200 LED streetlights.

Budapest

Project dataType: Through-roads, LSH 12m
Lamps used: Hawk Eye® [3.0] 3M, system power 90 Watt
Replaces: sodium discharge lamp , system power 169 Watt
Results from real-life applications: Energy savings: ~45%

City of Los Angeles 

Client: City of Los Angeles (“the City”)

Project: Replacement of 140,000 city street light fixtures with LED fixtures, and installation of remote monitoring system

Lead Agency: Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting

Estimated Total Project Cost: $57 million

Projected Annual Energy & Maintenance Savings (Post Retrofit): $10 million

Projected Annual Energy Savings (Post Retrofit): 68,640,000 kWh/year

Projected Annual CO2 savings: 40,500t /CO2 /year

Installation Timeline: 5 years

Expected Payback: 7 years

System Description:

The City’s street lighting system is owned and maintained by the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting, part of the Los Angeles Department of Public Works. With over 209,000 street lights in its control, the City boasts the second largest municipally-owned street lighting system in the United States. The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting was established in 1925; today it employs 250 people.

The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting pays a variable rate per fixture to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the municipal utility company. Rates for street light fixtures are calculated by the Department of Water and Power depending upon real kWh draw of that fixture.

The City’s residents pay the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting for street lighting service through an annual tax assessment.

The City has accrued vast fixture testing experience via its New Technology Group.

Project Outcome:

In October 2008, Los Angeles’ Mayor Villaraigosa approved the retrofit project, allowing the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting to commence formal rollout by means of internal funding.

In November 2008, the City apprised prospective LED street light fixture manufacturers of a two-month final product evaluation, to occur during January and February 2009, during which it would verify its prior pilot testing and identify the LED products to be used for the first wave of installation. These manufacturers were invited to send 3 to 4 fixtures for testing to the Bureau of Street Lighting at no cost or significantly reduced cost to the City.

The project will be executed from 2009 to 2013 in five discrete yearlong phases:

Year 1 will begin in July 2009 and encompass 20,000 fixtures.

Years 2 thru 5 will each encompass 30,000 fixtures, totaling 140,000 fixtures. The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting will carry out all work for both the Pilot Project and the Full Retrofit.

Due to the rapid evolution of LED fixtures, for each yearlong project phase the City will reevaluate LED products on the market to determine which products it should install; this affords the City an enviable flexibility in its product selection process.

The City will dramatically reduce its street lighting maintenance costs due to the long life of LED fixtures.

The City will install remote monitoring devices on each of its 140,000 new street lights, allowing the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting to collect real-time data on its system performance at the fixture level. The City will be able to centrally monitor its street light network, verifying energy savings and performance of new LED fixtures, and optimizing equipment maintenance.

Key Project Development Steps:

To analyze the feasibility of a retrofit project, CCI and the City undertook these key project development steps:

−Conduct Economic Analysis to produce information for Financing Analysis based on system data, including:

-       Total installed streetlights to be replaced

-       Cost per street light for new equipment

-       Cost per street light for operation and maintenance ($)

-       Useful life of old and new equipment (years)

−Solicit Financing Proposals by communicating:

-       Total project size ($ US; generated from Economic Analysis)

-       Cash Flows” produced from energy and maintenance savings ($ US; generated from Economic Analysis)

-       Current Funds Flows within existing system (how are payments made for street lighting between the customers, the city and the utility)

-       Primary financing objectives for City (pricing vs. structure or both)

-       Preferred financing structure(s) (In this case, proposals needed to focus on energy savings)

-       Required financing term (years)

-       Timeline and deadline for financing proposals

−Based on the economic analysis and financing proposals, the City could develop a Business Case for the project.

Other cities with Led Street Lighting:
Mesa, Arizona

Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts

Cebu City, Philippines
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

Halifax, Amherst, Annapolis Royal, Wolfville, Halifax International Airport, Truro, Antigonish, and many other smaller towns in Nova Scotia have installed fixtures manufactured and designed by a company in that province.