L.A. Launches Nation’s Biggest Lighting Retrofit Program

February 19, 2009

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The city of Los Angeles is planning to spend $57 million to retrofit 140,000 streetlights with LED bulbs. The project is the nation’s biggest lighting retrofit programs, Contra Costa Times reports. President Clinton announced that the Outdoor Lighting Program of the Clinton Climate Initiative is working with Los Angeles on the retrofit.

Once the overhaul is fully complete, L.A. will save electricity expended on street lighting in the city by a minimum of 40 percent and reduce carbon emissions by approximately 40,500 tons a year. Over a seven-year period, the city will save a total of $48 million and reduce carbon emissions by 197,000 tons. After the loan is repaid in seven years, L.A. will continue to save $10 million annually as a direct result of this lighting retrofit project.

The program is scheduled to begin in June, when the Bureau of Street Services will start replacing the bulbs in two-thirds of the city’s street signals.

The lighting retrofit program is expected to take five years to complete, starting with 20,000 the first year and 30,000 in each of the succeeding years.

The program is financed in part with a $14 million rebate from the Department of Water and Power.

The city’s mayor has set a goal of powering the city with 20 percent renewable energy by 2010 and 35 percent by 2020.

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Reader Comments

Digital HID (DHID) lighting now offers an even greater potential for energy savings over LED. For any existing/new HID application we can recommend the retrofit or replacement of the magnetic ballast HID system with our GloGreen digital ballast/fixture for 50%+ savings in electricity consumption with higher quality, brighter light that does not degrade over time. For example, in Ontario Automotive facilities, such as Toyota Manufacturing, we are successfully implementing 250W DHID ballasts w/ CMH bulbs in place of the old 400W magnetic MH HID fixtures for 60%+ savings in energy. With the introduction of dimming and smart control software, the savings can be even more significant.

For a Street Light Project in Pittsburgh, PA, USA we replaced 150W and 250W HPS magnetic ballasts in existing cobra head fixtures with GloGreen 100W MH electronic ballasts. A simple plug-and-play retrofit; the GloGreen system is favoured over LED based designs because GloGreen offers better performance and price/ROI benefits.

Anthony Borges | October 10th, 2009