The final round of LED upgrades to Norfolk County Council’s Street Lighting is underway, cutting CO2 emissions by over 200 tonnes a year, according to the council.
The work, which will replace traditional High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting with the latest generation of LED lanterns, will take place over the next 24 months, and involve replacing 16,800 HID lights with LEDs. When complete, 100% of Norfolk County Council’s streetlighting will use low energy LEDs.
Cllr Graham Plant, Norfolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways and Infrastructure, said “The move to LED lighting shows how technology can help us reduce our carbon emissions while maintaining services and public amenities: with the entirety of our streetlighting soon to be using LED lanterns, we’re keeping Norfolk’s streets lit while avoiding hundreds of tonnes of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere each year.
“And the benefits don’t stop there: the new lanterns can be controlled centrally by a Central Management System that will allow us to adapt streetlighting to changing traffic patterns without needing to send crews out to replace lanterns again, saving us time, money and – yes – the carbon emissions of those teams travelling across the county.”
The work, which is funded by a capital commitment of £7.5m agreed by the Council’s Cabinet meeting in November 2022, is being carried out by Amey Ltd on behalf of Norfolk County Council.
This final phase of the move to low energy LEDs will save an estimated 1,099,032 kWh of energy per year, equating to approximately £380,000 p.a. at the current electricity prices. This represents an estimated carbon saving of 227 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year as a result of the final stage of switching from HID to LED streetlighting.
Since the first LED streetlights were installed in 2008, an estimate 71 million kWh have been saved, representing a reduction of over 22,200 tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions – equivalent to 6.7 million litres of diesel use.
Encouraging more people to use the bus travel and other sustainable options is key to the council’s ambitious aims of achieving net-zero in Norfolk by 2030.
Norfolk County Council has committed to achieve ‘net zero’ carbon emissions on its estates by 2030, but within its wider area, to work with partners towards ‘carbon neutrality’. This also supports the government’s ambition for a net zero country by 2050.
The council said it will achieve this by implementing carbon conscious ways of working across its buildings and supply chain; putting in place the right infrastructure across the county to support the move towards net-zero; and by working together with partners to lead and inspire its colleagues, citizens, communities, and businesses to take action and play their part in protecting Norfolk for future generations.
