13
Nov
2012
By Calvin at 11:30 GMT, 13 years ago
It was interesting to hear about Sheffield’s impressive plan to replace all its street lighting over the next five years. Out will go all the ‘orangey’ low pressure sodium and (slightly better) high pressure sodium lighting and in will come 58,000 of the latest LED (light-emitting diode) street lighting luminaires.
These new LED street lamps use less energy than the lamps they are replacing, produce a much better white light to enable us to see colours in the dark and the solid-state (robust) lamps have a much longer life; needing to be replaced every 25 years rather than every 4.
The new lamps are also controllable, enabling the council to remotely dim or brighten them or switch them off individually or by street. This controllability will save the council a whole heap of money cutting their electricity bill from £3m to £1.2m a year. The LED luminaires are directional and designed in such a way as to focus the light to where it is needed, i.e. onto the roads and footways rather than up into the sky or into people’s bedroom windows, so amateur astronomers and restless sleepers are going to be well pleased about this news!
According to ‘Lighting Magazine’ the contract for this work has been won by Philips WTRL
