Glasgow Becomes First City to Sign Up For ‘Green’ Street Lights
Glasgow has officially become the first local authority in the UK sign up for a new green loan that will finance the switch to eco-friendly street lighting. At present, the city contains 72,000 sodium lamps, but it is believed that switching these to LED lights will see substantial savings to the city’s current £8.9 million street lighting bill.
Cutting Greenhouse Emissions by Over 45,387 Tonnes
The street lighting bill, however, is not the only thing that will be cut. It is estimated that switching to LED streetlights will cut greenhouse gas emissions by over 45,387 tonnes. At present, lighting the streets accounts for 16 percent of the city’s overall spend on power, with the Green Loan allowing councils in the UK to borrow money at a low, fixed rate to fund environmentally friendly city improvements. Repayment comes from the savings made by the changes as opposed to tax increases.
Street Lights Cost £300 Million A Year
In the UK as a whole, the amount of money spent on street lights is staggering. In the UK, there are currently seven million street lights and these cost £300 million a year to run. The cost per local authority differs widely, but in some areas, street light operating costs account for around 40 percent of their overall energy use.
The use of LED lighting has been incredibly popular in America, with LA and New York utilising the technology, in the UK we currently have fewer than one million LED street lights.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said "street lighting across Britain tends to be very costly and energy inefficient, emitting the same amount of carbon dioxide each year as a quarter of a million cars on the road."
Glasgow’s Street Light Plan
The plan is that many of the now outdated streetlamps will be replaced by the end of 2015, with all street lights to be replaced by 2018 at the latest as Glasgow will celebrate the 200th anniversary of municipal lighting coming to the city. The project will see Glasgow become a “more intelligent city”, but the cost of the project is large.
To replace the initial 10,000 street lamps, the council will have to pay £8.6 million, only £300,000 less than the project will save over the course of its 18 year lifespan. Overall, modern street lamps will burn for 15-20 years on average, and this is six times longer than their sodium counterparts. The focus here is very much on sustainability rather than cost reduction.
Green Investment Bank and the Need to Go Green
The scheme itself is brokered by the Edinburgh based Green Investment Bank (GIB) who are hoping to roll out the pioneering scheme across the UK, making councils seriously consider going green and saving on their bills.
GIB itself is only one year old and was set up as part of a £3.8 billion government deal to help the UK move to a more sustainable, green economy. Since November 2012, it has already spent £750 million in energy projects and it is very much hoped that if Glasgow is a success, more cities will look to adopt the project, transforming the way that Britain lights its streets.
GIB says that switching to these LED street lights will see a return on investment in 5-15 years depending on usage and then goes on to state that after this point, returns are enhanced further, with energy bills dropping by as much as 80 percent in the long term. Energy efficiency is one of the key strands of the GIB's investment strategy, alongside its plans to invest in clean technologies such as offshore wind farms in the coming years.