PP12: Illuminating figures

According to the (admittedly self interested) Coventry based electronics manufacturer ‘Advanced LEDs’ the UK lags far behind in the global trend of replacing traditional high pressure sodium street lights with LEDs.

Light Emitting Diodes produce a brighter, whiter light and use 40% less electricity than a conventional bulb to do so. Not only this but they also require far less maintenance, with a LED street lamp typically only needing maintenance every 5 years compared to the 18 months required today.

Towns and cities in Canada have found that they can make large savings after the initial investment. For every thousand 60W street lamps installed it is claimed (by the industry) to result in the saving of C$100,000 a year. Furthermore a European industry consortium claims that a 700W conventional street lamp produces 2 tonnes of CO2 a year. Not all street lamps are this big, but there are approximately 7.5 million street lamps throughout the UK, and so the savings to be made are substantial (and surprising when compared to the figures for the air industry below). Whatever the figure there can be no denying that this is something well worth doing. County and City Councils across the country should immediately make their installation a priority. Central government should assist, perhaps by providing an interest free loan to the councils or some other sort of allowance. I have no idea about the actual ins and outs of government/council funding but whatever the situation, something needs to be done to allow the councils to immediately go and out purchase these time, energy and money saving devices.

With a spot of luck this will also lead to a stop in County Councils turning lights off at night to save money. I’ve always thought that unless very well thought out this idea was a bad one, lights are put in place for our safety so turning them off seems a little silly. Although dimming lights, as they do in Rome, seems like a prudent measure and can (apparently) lead to up to a further 40% saving.