Anchorage LED retrofits shine: new lights save energy, money, salmon and health.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: BUILDING ALASKA

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Call it a revolution in lighting. As energy prices continue to soar and concerns about a sustainable environment grow, Anchorage is following suit with other cities across the nation and world, investing millions of dollars to replace out-of-date street lamps with Beta light emitting diode (LED) lighting that saves energy, protects the environment, reduces maintenance costs and provides better light quality for improved visibility and safety.

"We get three to four calls a week from people wanting to know when they are going to get the lights in their neighborhood," Michael Barber, lighting program manager for the Municipality of Anchorage says. "Frankly, we were shocked. It's not that often that people call the street light maintenance department."

In a city where about 85 days per year have less than eight hours of daylight, energy efficient lighting is especially critical, though LED lighting is also being looked at in cities that are not daylight challenged. Across the country, 61 million to 68 million roadway lamps turn on each night, with utilities, municipalities and state governments consuming 1 percent of the country's electricity to light roadways. Roadway lighting also consumes 1.3 percent of all end-use lighting and can account for up to 40 percent of a city's electrical usage.

LED TECHNOLOGY

Predominant outdoor lighting technologies in the U.S. today include high-pressure sodium (HPS), low-pressure sodium (LPS) and metal halide (MH). HPS, the most common lighting source on public roadways, came to the market in the 1980s, replacing mercury vapor fixtures then used across the United States. Over the next decade, new outdoor lighting technologies, particularly LED and control systems, will be phased in and brought to scale as production costs decrease and efficiencies improve.

Current LED technology provides between 50 percent and 60 percent cost savings through simple retrofits of existing HPS fixtures. When combined with centralized control systems used to dim streetlights, depending on the weather and time of day, in some instances, studies show Anchorage energy savings approaching 75 percent over its HPS system.

This light source also has the potential to reduce the entire nation's energy costs by about 7 percent, keep up to four tons of mercury out of landfills and incinerators each year, and give building owners lighting that doesn't require lamp replacement for at least a decade.

BEGICH IDEA

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