Shropshire Council gives green light to £6.8m LED plans
Transforming more than 16,000 street lights across Shropshire to LED will save energy and money, councillors have heard.
Shropshire Council today voted to invest almost £7 million to change its 16,523 lights that aren’t already LED over the next three years.
The change will save the authority £506,533 per year.
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More than 3,000 lights in the county which are the responsibility of the unitary authority have already been switched.
Council cabinet member, Councillor Steve Davenport, said the plan is to change the 16,253 street lights that are located across the county, replacing the traditional street lighting bulbs with LEDs and, where required, replace the street lighting columns.
“The LED conversion programme will contribute significantly to reduced energy consumption and will be intrinsic to the delivery of the council’s environment agenda, by reducing the consumption of electric by 56 per cent over the working period," he said.
"This will put a huge dent in our carbon footprint."
Major
The council currently spends approximately £1 million each year on energy for street lighting.
The report to the meeting said projections indicated energy costs for street lighting will would rise by between five per cent and 14 per cent over the next 10 years which could mean the annual cost increasing to nearly £3.7 million in that time and as high as £13.7 million in 20 years if prices rose by 14 per cent each year.
“By investing approximately £6.83 million over three years to convert the council’s 16,253 street lights to LED, it would reduce their consumption by 56 per cent saving approximately £506,533 per year (at today’s prices) in energy and a reduction in maintenance costs of an estimated £390,899 per year," added Councillor Davenport.
“In order to achieve the above intention, full council is asked to approve that Shropshire Council applies to SALIX (a government agency) for an interest-free loan, supported with identified and approved SC finance to deliver a total budget of £6,824,011 for the three years of the programme to deliver the improvements and changes.
“Replacing approximately 16,253 lights is a major construction project. There will be localised operational disruption as lights are changed and this could include lane closures to safely carry out the work.
“However, the work involved does not require any excavation or major road works – in most cases the replacement can be fully carried out in 15 to 30 minutes for each lantern.”
