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Honestly because the switch to LEDs has been at least as much about virtue signaling as any real savings. The energy savings will eventually pay for the LED con
by ams6110 8y ago
Honestly because the switch to LEDs has been at least as much about virtue signaling as any real savings. The energy savings will eventually pay for the LED conversion, but it takes a while. As in years. And as to unintended side effects, well we're just discovering those.
- st26 8y agoWhere's your numbers for that? My local muni operates about 10,000 street lights. If HPS averages 400W apiece, that's 4 megawatts, run for maybe 10 hours a day, at $0.10/kWh that's $4,000 a night... Now if by "years" you meant "two years", then fine, I can believe it- but two years is still a fantastic payoff period. Don't forget HPS burns out pretty regularly too. Tactic my muni is using is simply to replace burnt-out HPS with LED instead of repairing it. Lo, after a few years we're probably half LED.
- ambicapter 8y ago> it takes a while. As in years. Are you somehow surprised that an infrastructure project would take years to pay off?
- taneq 8y agoPayback time on domestic LED bulbs is actually surprisingly quick. We have "100W" LED bulbs that draw around 11W of power, and cost ~$5 each, compared with say $1 for a 100W incandescent light bulb. At 20c/kWh that's 20kWh of electricity, or ~225 hours of run time at 89W of saved power. Even if we only ran a bulb for 3 hours a night, it would pay for itself in two and a half months. I imagine the case for street lighting is even stronger, especially when you start to factor labour costs for bulb replacement as well. And traffic lights would be stronger again, because they're cycling instead of being constantly on, which shortens the filament life significantly.