Stamford Connecticut Switches to LED Streetlights

November 7th, 2011 by Elizabeth Smyth

In a move to help curb costs and expand sustainability efforts, the city of Stamford Connecticut is switching to energy-efficient LED streetlights. The move will save the municipality more than $146,000 annually.

To help jump-start the initiative, the city was awarded an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, an initiative funding energy efficiency and conservation programs across the country.

The grant funded the replacement of more than 1,000 high-pressure sodium-based streetlights with GE’s Evolve LED Roadway Medium Cobrahead (ERMC) fixtures

“We looked at several manufacturers and thought the GE Cobrahead lights offered the best quality in terms of color temperature (4300 K), CRI, lighting uniformity and reduced glare.” says Nancy Pipicelli, energy & utility manager for the City of Stamford.

The lights consume 95-157 watts per fixture, less than half that of consumed wattage under the previous high-pressure sodium vapor systems and have an estimated service life of more than 10 years.

Stamford will also receive a $357,000 rebate from Connecticut Light and Power, an electrical provider for the state of Connecticut. The city plans to use these funds to install an additional 467 energy-efficient streetlights using the LED technology next year.

Photo: General Electric

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Tags: energy efficient retrofits, lighting retrofits, street lighting

About the Author

Elizabeth Smyth is a writer for Precision Paragon, an energy efficient commercial lighting manufacturer and a leading source for lighting retrofit solutions.

BMS

Bring back mercury vapor lighting, those lamps have been known to still light after 15 years of nightly use and some fixtures I’ve seen in service for 35 plus years and still going, led lighting is not cut out to what everyone thinks, the technology is too new and why try and fix what isn’t broken. stick with High pressure sodium or metal halide fixtures.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  Mercury vapor lighting is broken. So is high pressure sodium.
  
  Anything that uses more electricity than necessary is broken.
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http://www.advancedledlights.com/ led grow lights

LED street lights would be cheaper and better.
atif khair

i think with out LED lights all streets going dark that means LED lights play important part in our life’s.
LED Sign
Seamus Dubh

Now while that ten year service life and 1/2 power usage is a good thing. But I need two more sets of numbers to understand the benefits of this better.
1. How long did the Sodium Vapor bulbs last?
2. What do the new LED bulbs cost compared to the Sodium Vapor ones?
- Anonymous
  
  20,000-30,000 hours for sodium vapor vs. 60,000 for LEDs. Twice as many lumins per watt for LEDs.
  
  I did not find comparative cost data. I did find one statement from a year ago that LEDs were “slightly more expensive” than sodium vapor lights.
  Don’t forget to add in the labor cost for changing burned out bulbs. That can be fairly high when you have to send out a couple of workers in a hoist truck. Sodium vapors would need to be replaced 2x – 3x as often.
  
  Macy’s Department stores calculated that they could save $1 billion over ten years ($100 million per year) by switching from halogen to LEDs in their 800 or so stores. A lot of the savings comes from less bulb changing.
http://www.quadtech.com/ QuadTech

A 10 year service life?! That most certainly pays for itself. The hardest part with any initiative like this is drumming up funds at the beginning. However, even if Stamford can only do so many lights at a time, the differences will be very noticeable with each round of changes.