LED Street

Lighting
Cutting Costs While Improving Safety and Service
Today’s light emitting diode (LED) street lights are designed to offer a completely new and revolutionary service
to cities and towns around the world. Street lights are no longer dull, commodity fixtures emitting yellow light.
Innovations in lighting technology, systems and controls now mean that street lights are much more energy
efficient, offer better quality light and can help local authorities save money, while improving the services they
offer their constituencies.

There are many compelling reasons for local governments and municipalities to convert to LED street lighting:

Lighting Quality Energy Savings Less Maintenance Intelligent Networks

LED street lighting offers a LED street lighting is more LED street lighting Coupling LED street
significant improvement energy efficient than provides a significantly lighting systems with
over the ubiquitous yellow conventional technologies longer operating life than controls and intelligent
glow of sodium. The white – with designs that save on conventional technologies, networks further augments
light of LED systems offers average between 40 and so there are fewer lamp their benefits, supporting
better colour rendition and 80 per cent of energy, changes and less down- municipalities in managing
object detection, and depending on the time and expense and facilitating other
enhances safety and technology being replaced. associated with street light critical municipal services,
comfort. LED street For example, a 250 W outages. Many cities have such as emergency
lighting also offers better sodium fixture can be saved 50 to 75 per cent of responders, parking, traffic
optical design replaced with 110 W LED. their street lighting flow and even air quality
opportunities which Adding controls to the maintenance budget by monitoring.
cannot be achieved with network to enable late- switching to LED
conventional sources, night dimming (within technology.
resulting in more even safety standards) can
illumination and reduced capture a further 15 to
light pollution. 30 per cent savings.
 © seewhatmitchsee

© Sean Pavone
Energy Savings

Municipalities today face many demands on their Upgrading to LED street lighting has the potential
budgets and time. Moreover, the literature suggests to generate significant energy savings. Case
that street lighting can account for as much as 50 per studies from around the world highlight the
cent of a municipal energy budget. Hundreds of cities energy savings benefits that have been realised by
around the world have taken the step to upgrade their municipal authorities who have shifted from
lighting systems to incorporate new LED technology conventional street lighting to LED systems. The
and controls, and realised the financial benefits and literature points to energy savings of anywhere
performance improvements of doing so. More detail from 40 to 80 per cent, depending on the lighting
on the motivation behind this shift, including light design and the technology being replaced.
quality, energy savings, lower maintenance and Additionally, LED technology lends itself much
intelligent networks, is given below. more readily to dimming. Indeed studies have
shown that late in the night, when there is less
traffic and eyes have adjusted to the darker
conditions, it is possible to safely reduce the levels
of illuminance on the street, typically yielding a
further 15 to 30 per cent of energy savings.
Lighting Quality
The table below offers indicative estimates of the
The improvements in lighting quality that come energy saving potential of LED street lighting
from shifting to white-light LED sources from compared to typical conventional technologies.
older yellow sodium systems go beyond the These savings translate directly into smaller
aesthetic. Studies have shown that safety is also energy bills for cities and municipalities.
improved. The white light sources double driver
peripheral vision, speed up the human eye
response time and increase brake reaction time Typical
LED
at least 25 per cent. People’s perception is that, at
Replacement*
the same lighting levels, white-light systems are Conventional
Energy Savings
brighter and safer than yellow light. Technology

In addition to the human-perception benefits, Mercury vapour LED replacements

LED systems offer optical improvements that 200 Watts 65 Watts 67 % savings
deliver more even illumination on the road surface 450 Watts 135 Watts 70 % savings
or walkway, thereby avoiding dark spots and
pools of light. LED street lights are typically
High pressure sodium LED replacements
composed of dozens of individual LED light point
100 Watts 55 Watts 45 % savings
sources, which are optically designed and
250 Watts 108 Watts 57 % savings
arranged to provide light coverage much more
efficiently and evenly across the illuminated area.
They are, in essence, a collection of spot lights,
Metal halide LED replacements
carefully arranged to provide even lighting – 100 Watts 45 Watts 55 % savings
something which was very difficult to achieve 175 Watts 85 Watts 51 % savings
with conventional technology, which is typically a
single light source shining through a large lens. Incandescent/halogen LED replacements
LEDs also offer better optical precision, so there is 200 Watts 25 Watts 88 % savings
a significant reduction in ‘light pollution’,
including ‘up light’ (wasted light illuminating the
night sky) and light encroachment outside of the
Note: Actual installation wattages will vary depending on the
intended lit area, which can affect wildlife.
installation and national/local safety standards. Energy saving
figures are indicative averages based on desk research.
 Controls and Intelligent
Networks

Beyond the energy and environmental benefits,

an intelligent network of street lights spread out
across a city or town also offers communications
improvements. Systems which can assist with
many of the normal functions of a living city,
including parking and traffic flow, are available.
They can provide drivers with real-time
information about the availability of parking,
© Dedi Grigoroiu including where spaces are available and
whether parking lots are full, thereby avoiding
wasted time and unnecessary journeys searching
Lower Maintenance Costs for a space. Street lighting systems can monitor
traffic flow, and offer alternative routing based
Replacing broken street lights is a regular cost on weather, construction and changes to traffic
that all cities and towns have to pay. Given that signal timing. Intelligent street lights can also
street lights operate about 4,000 hours/year (on monitor air quality and other environmental
average 11 hours/night) and that most conventional conditions to improve information flow and
lamps are rated for about 20,000 hours of service, enable municipalities to take action to benefit
these are generally replaced on a five year cycle. the lives of their citizens.
Changing street lights carries significant
associated costs for traffic control, lane and ramp Intelligent lighting systems can also improve
closures, and sometimes forces transport the emergency response to dangerous
authorities to engage in late night work to avoid developments by assisting with traffic control,
congestion and modal conflict. Hence the costs of providing information about the location of an
maintaining a traditional system are very high. incident and reducing response time. Systems
which have audio functions can even detect gun
Today’s LED lighting systems are offering multi- shots and automatically notify police of the time
year warranties and come with lifetimes of and location of an incident.
100,000 hours – a five-fold improvement over the
service life of conventional street lighting
technologies, representing 25 years of service at
4,000 hours/year. This has been achieved by
creating designs that incorporate features such
as surge protection to prevent electrical faults,
heat sinks and other thermal design measures to
improve heat transfer and prolong LED life.
Furthermore, systems that incorporate controls
and intelligent networks are able to monitor and
report back on their performance and
functionality, thus enabling the control unit to
know exactly where any failures have occurred.

Case studies have found that the maintenance

cost savings from upgrading to LED lamps have
typically been between 50 and 75 per cent, which
lowers costs and frees up staff to work on other
critical municipal priorities. Lower maintenance
costs are a critical factor to keep in mind when
looking at the payback from adopting an LED
street lighting solution.
 From Idea to Reality 5. Develop, and issue, a procurement specification,
taking into account local safety standards;
Mayors around the world who have already taken the 6. Meet with LED street lighting suppliers to discuss
step to LED street lighting are currently benefitting from your options;
the energy and performance savings from this upgrade. 7. Test the preferred solution in your community and
The value proposition of LED street lighting is compelling solicit feedback;
from a cost, environment, safety and service perspective. 8. Issue the final procurement specification and select
Innovations in lighting technology, systems and controls a supplier;
now mean that street lighting is much more energy 9. Install the LED street lights;
efficient, offers better quality light and can help local 10. Develop and implement a maintenance programme.
authorities save money, while improving the services
they offer their constituencies. Payback periods vary Financing
around the world, but many projects are now coming in
with a payback period of less than five years on the Financing an LED street lighting retrofit can be a hurdle
investment. for many municipalities, even if the planned transition
offers very favourable economics. As LED street lighting
The following are a series of steps and instruments that systems are designed to last for 15 to 20 years, all aspects
a municipality could consider in making the shift to LED of initial costs, ongoing expenses, and long-term savings
street lighting: must be taken into account. A growing variety of
financing and business model options are available, but
1. Decide whether LED street lighting is appropriate the most common are: 1) city-owned and maintained, 2)
for your community; city-owned and third-party maintained, 3) utility-owned
2. Determine the scope (number of lights) and and maintained, and 4) utility-owned and third-party
timing of the project; maintained. Linked to the business models, different
3. Identify possible sources of finance; sources of finance are available including self-financing,
4. Develop a business case that looks at the costs utility financing, grants/rebate schemes, and third-party
and benefits, with an emphasis on the payback financing. The key point being, if the business case is
period; strong, the financing will follow.

Further information and assistance

Some primary and secondary resources where interested parties can get more detailed information and access to tools on street lighting include1:

PUBLIC ORGANISATION RESOURCES The Climate Group

http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/programs/LED-scale-up/
ADEME
http://www.ademe.fr/collectivites-secteur-public/gerer- The World Bank (manual, India: Energy-Efficient Street Lighting—
equipements-services/eclairage-public Implementation and Financing Solutions)
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/22275
DesignLights Consortium
http://www.designlights.org/
PRIVATE SECTOR RESOURCES
DOE Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium
http://energy.gov/eere/ssl/doe-municipal-solid-state-street-lighting- Leotek Group
consortium http://www.leotek.com/education/documents/Leotek.LED.
Streetlight.Guide.V7-101613.pdf
Les Eco Maires (Guide pratique, Le Maire et la Gestion de L’énergie)
http://www.ecomaires.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Le_ Osram
Guide_pratique_le_Maire_et_la_gestion_de_l_energie2.pdf http://www.osram.com/osram_com/applications/street--urban/
index.jsp
LED Lighting Facts
http://www.lightingfacts.com/ Philips Lighting
http://www.lighting.philips.com/pwc_li/sg_en/lightcommunity/
Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD) assets/road_lighting/led-road-planners-guide-oct-2013.pdf
Street Lighting Tool
http://superefficient.org/sltool

1. This is not an exhaustive list, but is a partial listing intended to support local governments. Other resources are available from both the public and private sector.

Jonathan Duwyn 15 rue de Milan 75441 Paris CEDEX 09 France

For more
Project Manager E-mail: [email protected]
information on
LED street en.lighten initiative and United for Efficiency Telephone: +33 1 44 37 19 86
lighting, please United Nations Environment Programme www.enlighten-initiative.org
contact: Division of Technology, Industry and Economics http://united4efficiency.org

Disclaimer - The information contained within this brochure is for general guidance on matters of interest only and may be subject to change without notice. While we have
attempted to ensure that the information and data has been obtained from reliable sources, the United Nations Environment Programme is not responsible for any errors or
omissions. All information is provided on an “as-is” basis with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the result obtained from use of this information.