8 ways that cities are slashing streetlight costs

Keeping streets lit at night can end up costing a city a significant amount of money in energy and maintenance expenses over time. And with governments almost everywhere looking to cut budgets these days, municipalities are exploring a variety of ways to lower their streetlighting bills.

In the US alone, more than 52 million streetlights might need replacing over the next few decades. So how are cities looking to get a bigger bang for their streetlighting bucks?

• Trading in for more efficiency – Chicago is replacing many of its old sodium-vapor streetlights with metal-halide lamps that are 33 percent more energy efficient.
• Going solar – Chennai, India, expects to cut its streetlight energy consumption by 25 percent by replacing 60,000 streetlights with LEDs, compact fluorescents and other efficient technologies, including 25,000 solar-powered lights.
• Alternate lighting – Ahmedabad, India, is installing solar power plants and efficient streetlighting, but also aims to save money and energy through a program in which alternate lights are turned off on some streets depending on the time and traffic levels.
• Switching off lights late at night – Hertfordshire in the UK has begun switching off most of its streetlights entirely after midnight and, so far, reports the plan hasn’t caused any uptick in crime.
• Ditching light poles completely – The Dutch city of Eindhoven has started using Philips’ new FreeStreet lighting system, which features strings of LEDs on narrow cables instead of streetlight poles. The “floating” lights are not only energy efficient but help to declutter streets and free up public space, according to Philips.
• New fees – The Ohio town of Millersburg is considering charging citizens a separate fee to cover the cost of keeping streetlights on. If that doesn’t go through, the city might either switch lights off or pull some out completely.
• Opting for a buyback – Some cities don’t maintain all their own streetlights, but rely on a utility company or other operator to take care of them. At least one town — Syracuse — has found that buying back streetlights, along with upgrading them to a more efficient type, will save money over time.
• Adding smarts – The Vietnamese city of Hanoi is among those looking to make streetlights not only more efficient but more intelligent. The system it’s using from Echelon will enable the city to control lighting from a data center and even extend the network’s capabilities to do things like manage traffic lights, monitor street noise and collect data on pollution.