New York City is replacing all its streetlights, about 300,000 bulbs, with LEDs and expects to complete the project by 2019, resulting in a 35 percent decrease in energy consumption for streetlights.
Margaret Newman, chief of staff for the NYC Department of Transportation, told GreenBiz that The Central Park installation has been completed with about 1,500 fixtures retrofitted to LED, and the city expects to see a savings of about $250,000 per year and about 700,000 kW per year.
Since the city began its LED streetlight project in 2009, the cost of LEDs have come down considerably, so that they’re almost a one-to-one replacement cost for some of the fixtures, reports GreenBiz.
With the reduced costs and the energy savings, the city is looking at paybacks of from five to seven years. If the LEDs reduce energy consumption by 30 to 50 percent, as projected, the city will save about $15 million per year. By the end of 2014, New York City will have spent $11 million to install about 34,000 LED streetlights. By 2017, an additional 200,000 HPS fixtures will have been retrofitted with LEDs at an additional cost of $80 million.
Other cities that either have switched to LED streetlights or are moving in that direction include San Francisco, San Antonio, Texas, Austin, Texas, and Montreal, Canada.
