Hampshire County Council’s five year project to replace 150,000 streetlights, illuminated signs and bollards with the latest energy saving lighting technology is saving money already.
The project was started in April 2010 under a 25 year, £120m private finance initiative in partnership with SSE Contracting Lighting Services. It has so far seen almost 39,000 complete units (lamp posts and lanterns) and a further 36,000 lanterns replaced or updated.
Remote monitoring systems have also been fitted to many of the upgraded streetlamps, which give the ability to dim the lights remotely, report faults automatically and alter the switch-on/off times to reduce energy consumption.
In addition to the savings in electricty the project is estimated to save 8,000 metric tonnes of emitted carbon per year. All large public and private sector organisations are now obliged to pay for their carbon emissions and at £16 per metric tonne of emitted carbon this represents savings of £128,000 a year for Hampshire’s residents.
To read more and details on this PFI Project, see the Hampshire County Council website.