A fine example of reducing carbon footprint
Gloucestershire County has set a fine example by the ‘invest to save’ scheme, where the county’s street lights are dimmed or switched off for part of the night. The scheme is held up as an example of how UK councils can reduce their carbon footprint.
The county estimates it will obtain annual savings of about £210,000 and cut CO2 emissions by 28 percent by dimming and switching off its street lights. Many of the high wattage street lights are dimmed between midnight and 5:30 a.m., and in the rural areas and market towns some of the street lights are turned off during the same period.
Gloucestershire County Council is already generating savings, and when the project of converting the rest of the county’s street lights is completed, it will reduce carbon emissions by 400 tonnes - the equivalent of boiling 26 million kettles.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
The dimming equipment was supplied by Micatron UK Ltd see www.micatron.co.uk .
The existing street lighting lanterns are fully refurbished by fitting a retrofit gear tray with dimming switch at the time of routine lamp replacement to reduce installation costs.
No outside intelligence or radio monitoring equipment is required, all of the technology is located inside the lantern. A[pproximate costs per lantern, assuming a 150W lamp dimmed to 100W approx £60.00.
Typical savings and ROI = 3 .2 years.