Plans to upgrade South Kesteven District Council’s street lighting to LED – to save money and reduce its carbon footprint – have been backed by councillors.
Street lighting is the single largest area of electricity consumption for the Council and the energy reduction potential of upgrading lamps to LED is significant, a report to a finance committee revealed.
Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Ashley Baxter, told the Finance and Economic Overview and Scrutiny Committee that 3,893 lights are operated by SKDC across the district; most of the rest belong to Lincolnshire County Council.
Seeking support for the switch to LED, he said: “This decision is much easier because the cost of running our street lights is now much higher. The payback time of investing in energy-efficient LEDs is down. To me, the decision to expediting LED street lighting is a no-brainer.”
He explained the real choice for the Committee was whether or not to keep the SKDC lights on all night, or turn them off for a few hours in a similar way to the LCC lights.
One option is to update existing lamps with a modern LED equivalent to save a lot of money and allow dimming over night to retain illuminance. An alternative is to make the LED upgrade and also save even more money by turning off for a period to be decided in common with most of the street lights across the county.
Both options would save over £200,000 per annum but turning off the lights would save an additional £34,000.
The officers’ report to the meeting said: “As a result of the sharp escalation in energy costs the business case for an accelerated programme of upgrades to LED across the whole stock of street lights has become stronger.
“Current costs remain at a historic high and, given the volatility of energy markets and potential for further disruption this winter, it is reasonable to expect a continuation of high prices for both gas and electricity.
“Reducing energy consumption from street lighting also will contribute to the Council’s declared carbon reduction target of at least 30% by 2030.”
The Committee unanimously agreed to support replacement scheme, with funding from either reserves or others sources as identified, and recommended the Environment Scrutiny Committee now considers the process from its own perspective.
Committee chairman Cllr Mark Whittington said: “This is an investment to save.”
Most of the lights currently operated by SKDC are low pressure sodium lamps and are responsible for just over 4% of the Council’s total carbon emissions.
In June 2019, a project was agreed to accelerate the upgrade of the Council’s street lights to LED lamps, replacing an existing policy to upgrade only failed lamps. To date, 686 street lights in South Kesteven have replacement LED bulbs, with a dimming capability, and figures show the energy reduction achieved, across all lights, is 12%.
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