Where are LEDs being used for Outdoor Lighting?
Anchorage, Alaska, recently announced it will begin installing 16,000 LED street lights. See Attachment A, below for more on this. Ann Arbor, Michigan, a city the size of Billings, recently contracted for 1000 LEDs for $630,000 to replace existing metal halide (MH) decorative street lights. The contract was awarded following a 25-fixture evaluation from five manufacturers. It showed a 50 percent energy savings and 3.8 to 4.4 year payback on initial investment. The Mayor of Ann Arbor told NBC that after the payback period, the ongoing savings would be $100,000 a year. LEDs, which are warranted for seven years, are designed to last at least 10 years, in some pathway lighting applications, 23 years. The vast majority of savings in Ann Arbor’s project were due to avoided maintenance. DOE does not expect most sites to see these kinds of maintenance savings, because Ann Arbor employs a spot lamp replacement approach. It is more common for communities to use a group lamp replacement process.
