LA uses LEDs for street lights, cheaper to operate

Feb. 16, 2009 | By Molly Peterson | KPCC

The city of Los Angeles plans to retrofit 140,000 of its residential street lights with technology that uses less energy. City Council President Eric Garcetti says that light emitting diodes – or LEDs – cost less to power up than the incandescent lights L.A. uses now.

Eric Garcetti: “We’re looking at about 10 to 12 million a year in cost savings probably. Just for switching those lights on in a different way than we do now. And we’ve been doing this with our traffic lights already which you’ve seen go from an incandescent bulb to LED. And the nicer thing too is we save costs on the labor side. These last two to four times longer.”

Garcetti says that loans, rebates, and a citywide street lighting assessment will pay to install the new lights for the next five years. City officials say L.A. expects to repay the loans through energy cost savings in seven years.

Former President Bill Clinton also was on hand to announce the plan. The Clinton Climate Initiative is working with L.A. and other large cities around the world to promote the use of more LED lights.

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