LEDs light the way on US and Scottish streets

Major corporations like Starbucks have adopted LED lights to cut costs and save energy. Cities in Scotland and Michigan are now embracing the benefits of LED lights on their streets.

Home to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor has made efforts to be a national leader in energy efficiency. In 2007, the city decided to switch all of their aging street lights in the downtown area to greener LED lights. Not only were the lights going to save the city energy and maintenance costs, they didn’t contain mercury like the older street lights.

Ann Arbor had over one thousand lights in the downtown area that needed to be switched from old 120-watt bulbs to 56-watt LEDs. The replacement LEDs had the added benefit of being mercury free unlike the older street lights.

The switchover was a success and saved the city about $10,000 in energy costs in 2009 and an additional $40,000 on maintenance. The city owns about a thousand other street lights that are slated for LED conversion via a $1.2 million Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

Over in Scotland, the city of Edinburgh was looking to employ green technology in the centuries old city. They partnered with the American firm Dialight for the first ever LED street light trial in the country.

They carefully selected Princes Street which is an area that includes some of Edinburgh’s most famous sites. Their aim was to improve visibility without clashing with area landmarks like the posh Balmoral Hotel or Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The balance of green technology and history can be a tricky thing. New LED lights might look like a space oddity when parked next to a historic hotel.

Their solution was to retrofit the existing street lights with LEDs and preserve the feel of one of Europe’s most famous cities. Dialight’s CEO Roy Burton said that the trial “is important in showing how Dialight’s LED lighting solutions can be put in place in the most sensitive of urban townscapes.”

Ann Arbor and Edinburgh prove that age doesn’t matter in the adoption of green technology. Cities new and old can reap green benefits by making smart choices that are as simple as changing a light bulb.