It seems obvious that cities would want to switch the majority of their lights over to LED’s. Not only do they last longer, but they use less energy as well. This saves the city money both in energy and in labor time spent replacing bulbs. I am not the only one that thinks so, the city of Raleigh, N.C. has recently started switching some of its city owned lights to LED’s.
[Raleigh, N.C.], which is in the center of the state’s tech hub, is conducting experiments to see if it can cut energy consumption and maintenance costs by replacing conventional public light fixtures with ones based around light-emitting diodes.
In December, Raleigh–in conjunction with LED manufacturer Cree–replaced high-pressure sodium lights in a downtown parking garage with LED lights. Although the LED lamps cost substantially more than regular sodium lamps, they require less electricity and need to be replaced far less often.
Early projections indicate that the expense of retrofitting the garage’s lighting system will get recovered in cost savings in two to three years, said Mayor Charles Meeker.
“We are saving over 40 percent of the energy we would otherwise use,” said Meeker (via)
