First Step Taken to reduce Street Lighting costs

Image taken from http://www.brilliantstore.com/blog/tag/led-lights/
Im not endorsing the content of this blog.

Council unanimously supported my call for the preparation of a report costing out the benefits of changing street lights to LED bulbs.

The City of Sydney Council have adopted a plan to reduce the Cities carbon footprint and LED lighting has been part of the strategy. They conducted a lighting trial to collect data and to test effectiveness.

Street lightening is considered one of the easy targets in the campaign to reduce our carbon footprint but can be costly and of course is controlled by the energy supplier. Rate payers pick up the enormous tab for lightening our streets and intersections and finding the balance between lighting for safety reasons and unnecessary waste can be tricky- even the timing of when lighting comes on and of.

I hope that the report back to Council shows that with an investment in LED lighting that we can not only reduce the amount of carbon we are dumping into the atmosphere, but also save money in the long term as electricity prices rise.

I expect that it will be quite costly to convert the lighting to LED but if so I would be very supportive of Council raising a loan to pay for such change as it will pay itself of over time through electricity savings.

Council has also made a commitment to have a sustainability fund were funds that are saved through reduced consumption of electricity can be banked and then used to purchase products that contribute to the saving.

So sustainable issue keep moving forward and the Waste and Sustainable Fund gives an income stream back to Council that tackles these big issues.

Looking forward to reading the report in the new year.