Environmental Leader

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.