Invest to save LED initiative

Our Invest to Save Road Lighting energy-saving project is set to replace half of the county’s 94,000 street lights and is projected to save around £1.5m each year in reduced energy bills. This cost saving is enough to power over 3,500 homes for a year or drive an electric vehicle more than 2,200 times around the world. 

Over the past few years, we have already been specifying that all of our road improvement schemes, asset replacement works and new developments should have LED street lighting. This is already having a positive effect in the county. 

We estimate that replacing our old lanterns to LED will take around four years. We also intend to dim lights in most locations, bringing even better energy savings and reduced carbon emissions. This is fantastic opportunity for us to improve much of the street lighting that we're responsible for. 

Why are we doing this? 

• Increased energy costs has meant the amount we've paid in electricity for street lights has gone up on average by 11% per year, this will only increase with the energy prices rising.
  
  
• This programme supports efforts to tackle climate change and reduce our CO2 emissions
  
  
• The reliability of the LED lanterns is significantly better than traditional street lights
  
  
• LEDs use less electricity, which is cheaper and better for the environment
  
  
• Carbon emissions are projected to be reduced by 12,000 tonnes
  
  
• A number of the old-style ‘orange’ (Sodium) lights in Staffordshire were becoming inefficient and difficult to repair as the lamps are being discontinued 

What are the benefits of using LEDs? 

• LED lights are expected to last for 100,000 hours or 20 to 25 years. This is much longer than the 15,000 to 20,000 hours - or 3 to 4 years - of other street lights, so we'll benefit from lower maintenance costs in the future
  
  
• They make colours look more natural
  
  
• LED street lights provide better facial recognition for security and CCTV cameras
  
  
• LEDs can be set to dim down in certain locations, resulting in additional energy savings
  
  
• LEDs don't contain the chemicals found in traditional lights such as mercury and sodium. They don't emit any ultraviolet or infrared light and will be 100% recyclable
  
  
• LED’s do not need to have regular lamp changes than with traditional lights which means less waste, reduced fuel used to service the lights and reduced congestion through fewer roadworks
  
  
• LED lanterns have excellent optical control, meaning there is less wasted light
  
  
• The new LED lights should be 60% cheaper to run than the old lanterns they are replacing, which will be a bigger saving with the increase in energy. 

Existing lighting	LED lighting

This major work is being overseen by E.on, who manage the County’s Highway lighting network on our behalf.