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Leeds Smart Street Lights
Leeds City Council to invest £30 million on smart streetlights.
11:27 27 October 2018
Leeds City Councillors have approved a recommendation to spend £30million on a project that will see the conversion of 86,000 lights across the city to new LED lamps over the next four years. The city council is also to invest an additional £5million to increase control on the lamps as part of a smart city network approach.
Based on the assessment, the project will help the council save £3.4million a year. Currently, Leeds spends around £4.8million a year on electricity to run its streetlights.
Councillor Richard Lewis, executive member for regeneration, transport and planning, said: “Having listened to what people told us and weighing up the costs and benefits, there is now a clear case for upgrading all streetlights in the city to more energy-efficient LEDs.
“With energy costs expected to rise, this is one area where we can make huge savings in cost and energy use, and it will pay for itself in ten years. There’s also potential for future savings because we’ll be able to do things like dimming street lights from a distance away.
“It also gives us an opportunity to utilise the latest technology as part of our commitment to innovation and being a smart city, so the lighting system can be controlled and maintained at a distance in response to events, again improving efficiency and saving money.
“On top of this, I don’t think we’ve yet realised the full potential of smart technology in this and it offers other potential benefits in terms of air quality and road temperature monitoring, so now is the right time to invest in this technology.”