California Cities Lead Nation in Reducing Emissions from Streetlights
PG&E workers installing an LED streetlight. Photo: PG&EStreetlights are an enormous part of any city's energy consumption and cities that wish to cut down on their emissions and their energy bills are getting in line to convert their older street lamps to LED technology. According to Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) and Department of Energy (DOE) data, street lighting costs are one of the biggest components of a city’s utility bill, accounting for 10 percent to 38 percent of the total. With nearly 35 million street lights in the United States, about 1 percent of all electricity is used by street lighting systems.
Like other cities in the Bay Area experimenting with LED streetlights, including San Francisco and Oakland, San Jose has embraced the nascent technology as part of a sustainability platform called Green Vision, which sets ambitious targets for reducing energy consumption and emissions, including an expected 50 percent or more energy and cost savings from the street lamp conversions.
"Our goal has always been to move to a more energy efficient light," said Laura Stuchinksy, Transportation Sustainability Officer at the San Jose Department of Transportation.
Stuchinsky said San Jose intends to replace all 62,000 streetlights throughout the city before the Green Vision target date of 2022. The city initiated a pilot streetlighting project in Hillview North in 2008 to replace 118 low-pressure sodium streetlights with LEDs and a recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus fund grant of $2.2 million will offset implementation costs for the next wave of conversions expected later this year. Further, the city intends to backfill with new renewable energy generated locally and possible purchases through PG&E. San Jose currently spends $4 million annually on street lights, which consumes over 35 million kilowatt hours of electricity, according to Stuchinsky.
