StreetLightNews

At the Spring Mountain Ranch community in Nevada, a rather unconventional solution has been chosen for powering the community’s street light.

A total of 992 lamps are running on natural gas, and since they are not equipped with the technology to be turned off, they burn 24 hours a day, summer and winter.

This comes at a high cost for the community, and the residents are picking up the tab. A resident from the homeowner’s association reports that one month’s gas bill comes to $17,500. This equals $17 per lamp per month. Electricity-powered street lights in the area cost between $3 and $6 a month.

Abandoning the solution is not really an option as the gas company will charge $240 per lamp to be retrofitted to electricity. So for now, the lights will stay on 24h.

Read the article here… 

There seems to be a trend towards energy savings being used as branding for American cities. More and more are implementing solutions that lower energy consumption, and then use this in their marketing strategy. Whatever works!
In Yakima, Washington, LEDs are replacing both traffic signal lamps and traditional 200 Watt HPS lamps. Initial results show savings of over 50%. The 100 Watt LEDs provide ultra-white lights with good color rendering. Also, the new lamps lowers light polution and has a 15-year product life. Read the full article on SmartMoney.com.
As described in a previous entry, similar projects are under way, e.g. in Ann Arbor where they are planning on becoming the first American city to convert 100% of their street light to LEDs. See more here…