NYC Is Replacing All Its Street Lights with LEDs

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This is such simple idea that it kinda makes you wonder why no one thought of it before.

“With roughly a quarter-million street lights in our City, upgrading to more energy efficient lights is a large and necessary feat,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “It will save taxpayers millions of dollars, move us closer to achieving our ambitious sustainability goals, and help us to continue reducing City government’s day-to-day costs and improving its operations.”
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Las Vegas has been replacing its street lights with LED's for a while now.
 
The city of Houston is halfway through the LED rollout and they were claiming $10 million a year in power savings...
 
While I can see it saving them money in the long run on electricity costs, I can also see the city officials taking the extra savings and giving themselves a nice bonus. This is NYC after all, lol.
 
Although this SOUNDS like a great idea, LED street lights put off very little heat. As a result they readily become caked in ice and snow and the signals become useless, whereas conventional lights melt the snow. That's not a problem Vegas has. We get snow rarely, but if it is blowing snow at all the street lights become completely obstructed and it's mayhem.
 
Peteman100 said:
I'm a huge fan of energy efficiency upgrades. But I hope they came up with a solution for the snow. LEDs are seemingly too efficient for this use case.

http://boingboing.net/2009/12/17/led-traffic-lights-d.html
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Traffic lights can be a problem but streetlights always point down thus shouldn't have any issues. That said newer LED traffic lights have heating elements in them to counter the ice issue and still consume far less energy than the 500w bulbs that older units ran.
 
SilverSliver said:
Although this SOUNDS like a great idea, LED street lights put off very little heat. As a result they readily become caked in ice and snow and the signals become useless, whereas conventional lights melt the snow. That's not a problem Vegas has. We get snow rarely, but if it is blowing snow at all the street lights become completely obstructed and it's mayhem.
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Street light != traffic light
 
I replaced my kitchen lights with LED bulbs and now spiders like to nest up inside the light housing where they never used to do so because incandescent bulbs were too hot for them. I think they will find other problems besides just snow and ice. That's OK though, it's how we make progress right.
 
The snow thing doesn't seem like a tremendous engineering hurdle. Put a glass or plastic covering on the front opening so snow can't accumulate in front of the light. Problem solved?
 
Enjoy all the frozen lamp standards that will emit barely any light in cold weather. LED has it's place, but in climates that get freezing temperatures, they are not without some major faults.

LED traffic lighting systems actually have heat generation means installed in the housing, which kind of negates the point of going LED in the first place (inefficient power conversion to light resulting in heat output). A pane of glass may negate snow but it won't negate ice or frost.
 
And yeah since I can't edit, we've had numerous problems with installs where I work that required a complete re-retrofit with standard bulbs, because of the above issues. Even the new-this-year LED units aren't quite there yet, and they are vastly more expensive up front (but offset after about 4-5 years of use via power savings).

It's a great technology, but it's still very much in the infancy period for mass public utility use in any climate that is remotely prone to freezing temperatures.
 
DarkStryke said:
Enjoy all the frozen lamp standards that will emit barely any light in cold weather. LED has it's place, but in climates that get freezing temperatures, they are not without some major faults.

LED traffic lighting systems actually have heat generation means installed in the housing, which kind of negates the point of going LED in the first place (inefficient power conversion to light resulting in heat output). A pane of glass may negate snow but it won't negate ice or frost.
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Depends if that heat generation is on 24/7/365. If it's only required during coldest parts of the year you still walk away with a net gain.
 
DarkStryke said:
Enjoy all the frozen lamp standards that will emit barely any light in cold weather. LED has it's place, but in climates that get freezing temperatures, they are not without some major faults.

LED traffic lighting systems actually have heat generation means installed in the housing, which kind of negates the point of going LED in the first place (inefficient power conversion to light resulting in heat output). A pane of glass may negate snow but it won't negate ice or frost.
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They will not require heating 24/7 and assuming heating requires the same amount as power as previous lights will still save money the rest of the time. Of course now you have the added complexity and potential for failure. So added initial investment and maintenance costs.

Still LEDS in general are becoming increasingly difficult to avoid as a signification cost savings in a majority of situations. The main issue I have is quality of light and fear of longevity of the bulb as a whole. That and expectations of price declines.
 
Raleigh-Durham, NC is shockingly way ahead of the curve here. I haven't seen a non-LED traffic light in at least two years. I figured this was commonplace as it seems anywhere I travel they have them as well.
 
melteye said:
No it does not make one wonder... as someone has thought of it before.
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In New York? Why didn't they implement it then?

On the original topic:

The biggest problem I have with all the money NY taxpayers will "save" is this..... sure we might save money but our taxes stay the same because politicians just blow the money they saved on other stupid crap. That's exactly what happened here in Vegas. :(
 
Steve said:
In New York? Why didn't they implement it then?

On the original topic:

The biggest problem I have with all the money NY taxpayers will "save" is this..... sure we might save money but our taxes stay the same because politicians just blow the money they saved on other stupid crap. That's exactly what happened here in Vegas. :(
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That's true of any added efficiencies in government. It almost feels better when they don't save money. :p
 
New York? I bet a third of them will be broken before they get done converting all of them.
 
Many things can delay changeovers to new technologies. On hand spares come to mind. When you have a system that requires a standard spare/replacement part you can save some money by ordering parts up front and stocking up on them when the price is good. But if you keep two years of spares on hand then this could delay a change for quite a while.
 
Why does Bloomberg's site look like a cheap WordPress template?
 
Its all gravy? No upfront costs? At least $100 million investment mentioned and that was for new work, old work wasn't quoted. $14 million/year, it better be 8 years before they need a program to refresh them.
 
I remain skeptical. As a consumer and someone who uses LEDs in some specialized cases I have found that LEDs are hard to find that are actually significantly more powerful in Lumens / watt. Basically you pay almost 10x the price for an LED light of similar lumen output to a CFL or incadecent bulb. But you don't save hardly any power. The other problem is the much touted claim that LEDs last so much longer. In theory this is true. But in practice is it? I have already had several LED lights die, why? Because the electronics powering them died. Yeah maybe the LED itself can last 50k hours but can the driver?

In the end I have found the only real savings is in time if you don't have to replace as many bulbs. But actual efficiency is hardly worth it. And the massive cost increase is horrible too.

The one place that LEDs seem to be worth it is in special use cases where light is all pointed in one direction and it is important to reduce heat output. Say you are growing plants in a terrarium and you can direct the light into the terrarium, direct the heat out. Or if you have something that is costly or difficult to replace and it is worth paying extra to have a light with a lower failure rate. But in most cases you sacrifice total light output to get that. The LEDs that output enough light are often over driven and will have a higher failure rate.
 
Forgot to mention I think that the main thing that people should do is just wait, for the price of LED tech to come down, removing that upfront cost will make everything else much more reasonable.
 
SO, what's the cost in making these, buying them, installing them, and running them versus what they pay a year for existing lights?

What is the ecological damage from LED production plants versus incandescent light plants?

My guess is there is very net gain by this move. It's another feel good move that's useless.
 
Seems like it would be pretty easy to fix the snow issue with a little roof of some sort on top of the lights, or some kind of lens that would make it so the snow would have now where to land on on the light section.
 
so 60 w equivalent led takes 9-15 watts depending on lumens vs a 60w that takes 60 watts. say you got a kitchen fixture with 5 of those puppies and you replace em.... u save barely any electricity ? come on!


street lamps are 90w to 150w depending on the brightness and are constantly on compared to home lights...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/cree-launches-99-led-street-light

other cities are already doing it , Los Angeles already changed 140 000 lights.

http://www.slideshare.net/ChristineGupta/2012-hps-comparison
slide 6: lumens comparison
slide 9: 0 mercury content

new techs is good
 
One potential advantage of LED streetlights is that LEDs can be mare more directional. There's a streetlight right outside our house that shines right in my kids' bedroom at night...annoying as heck.
 
During a major remodel, I've installed about 30 overhead lights where there were no lights at all in the ceiling; they expected you to have floor lamps everywhere, no thanks. I've gone with 9.5W LEDs in all of them, using the EcoSmart ECO-575L 6" can light that is $25 each at Home Depot. These overhead lights are usually in groups of 4 to 6; during the remodel process, they would briefly have 60W incandescent bulbs, then switch to the LEDs. The LEDs were brighter and put out light that looks just as good, and dim down to a very low level. $25 a light might seem pricey, but I will never have to replace them again; they'll likely last 20 or 30 years and I probably won't stay here that long.

Putting out no heat is great in the summer; you can have all the lights on full and not give the air conditioners any more work.
 
maboblivion said:
so 60 w equivalent led takes 9-15 watts depending on lumens vs a 60w that takes 60 watts. say you got a kitchen fixture with 5 of those puppies and you replace em.... u save barely any electricity ? come on!


street lamps are 90w to 150w depending on the brightness and are constantly on compared to home lights...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/cree-launches-99-led-street-light

other cities are already doing it , Los Angeles already changed 140 000 lights.

http://www.slideshare.net/ChristineGupta/2012-hps-comparison
slide 6: lumens comparison
slide 9: 0 mercury content

new techs is good
Click to expand...

A 60 watt equivalent CFL is 13 watts. Also the equivalent thing is abused heavily. When LEDs hit the stores I looked and the bulbs that were considered 60 watt equivalents on the LED packaging were putting out less lumens then the CFL that also claimed to be 60 watt equivalent.

Read even the links you cited carefully and digest the numbers. The gains for LED are small right now if any. And no one has a good sense for their real durability. Here are some classic examples.

Your slide share says lumens / watt of HPS are 80-140 and for LED 114 - 160. Yet you said a 60 watt equivalent bulb was only 9-15 watts. Seems you are picking only the numbers you like. In the numbers cited the lumens / watt is better for LED but no where near 4x better. So now is the cost worth it? As I said the big gain here is in the labor, but no one is going to announce that they are going to cute X number of jobs because they don't have to change lights as often. That headline wouldn't go over as well would it?

The way easier and better thing to do is to just keep waiting LED tech is improving but more importantly prices are coming down. They are still very high but in another couple years hopefully they will make sense. The total reliability though is still completely up in the air.
 
About time. i was wondering when that would happen. I guess they finally were able to squeeze it into the budget :). I can't wait to see it!
 
I don't think freezing will be a big issue. I have several 11watt (830 lumen, they claim 60watt equivalent but them seem brighter than that to me) LED bulbs and they get warm to the touch, street lights would have to be at least 25watts and all they need to do is get above freezing to get the little bit of snow that sticks to the bulb.
 
rudy said:
I remain skeptical. As a consumer and someone who uses LEDs in some specialized cases I have found that LEDs are hard to find that are actually significantly more powerful in Lumens / watt. Basically you pay almost 10x the price for an LED light of similar lumen output to a CFL or incadecent bulb. But you don't save hardly any power. The other problem is the much touted claim that LEDs last so much longer. In theory this is true. But in practice is it? I have already had several LED lights die, why? Because the electronics powering them died. Yeah maybe the LED itself can last 50k hours but can the driver?

In the end I have found the only real savings is in time if you don't have to replace as many bulbs. But actual efficiency is hardly worth it. And the massive cost increase is horrible too.

The one place that LEDs seem to be worth it is in special use cases where light is all pointed in one direction and it is important to reduce heat output. Say you are growing plants in a terrarium and you can direct the light into the terrarium, direct the heat out. Or if you have something that is costly or difficult to replace and it is worth paying extra to have a light with a lower failure rate. But in most cases you sacrifice total light output to get that. The LEDs that output enough light are often over driven and will have a higher failure rate.
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I bought a pair of 10 watt flood lights (allegedly the same as a 65 w bulb). It's brighter than the 65W bulb and about as bright as the 26W CFL flood I have.

Since I paid about 15 bucks for the LEDs and the CFL was more a year or 2 back, I'm OK with it. I also bought an $11 65w Equivalent normal size bulb. It's about the same as a 13W CFL (in this case no enclosure).

They may also be useful if you turn them on/off a lot, but I've seen LEDs go out in roughly 1 year of 24x7 use...probably a 10% failure rate. I have no idea what the warranty is.
 
BBA said:
SO, what's the cost in making these, buying them, installing them, and running them versus what they pay a year for existing lights?

What is the ecological damage from LED production plants versus incandescent light plants?

My guess is there is very net gain by this move. It's another feel good move that's useless.
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(Background: I work in procurement at the municipal level)

ROI on our roll-out was 4-5 years depending on usage. The problems that occurred were primarily cold weather related; diminished lighting levels from frost on the vandal shields which brought up security concerns, and as dumb as it sounds, icicles. The newest lights we have for a zone test don't have those vandal shields, so we're not yet sure if that frost issue is fixed or not (soon though, temps are dropping to 5° overnight now), but it also brings up concerns about damage from vandalism. Snow is not a concern for street lamps, ice / frost is. Falling icicles are a potential liability and PR nightmare waiting to happen if they hit the wrong thing / person. Those are things you can't just discount at a municipal level, especially the liability aspect. The units are very expensive compared to traditional incandescent fixtures as a start-up cost, servicing means unit replacements not a simple bulb change, and finally the durability is just not proven yet.

Keep in mind this doesn't mean LED is worthless, it's just not evenly applicable throughout the world for all lighting needs. Interior building LED has far surpassed incandescent and CFL, and in another 2-3 years residential housing starts will all switch over to it when the T5/T8 tube model LED replacements go mainstream. Facility lighting retrofits done in the last two years have already seen ROI paybacks ahead of schedule, and that's going from an already reduced CFL to LED.

They may also be useful if you turn them on/off a lot, but I've seen LEDs go out in roughly 1 year of 24x7 use...probably a 10% failure rate. I have no idea what the warranty is.
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Warranty on consumer channel LED from the major manufacturers (Phillips, GE) sucks compared to their commercial brands (1yr vs 3yr). If you're going LED and looking to replace quite a few bulbs, look for a local lighting distributor. A lot of them will sell smaller quantities at contractor+ rates, with the added benefit of you getting the far longer warranty.

SO, what's the cost in making these, buying them, installing them, and running them versus what they pay a year for existing lights?

What is the ecological damage from LED production plants versus incandescent light plants?

My guess is there is very net gain by this move. It's another feel good move that's useless.
Click to expand...
It's important to note that a large majority of the industry install base has moved over to CFL lighting in the last 15 years. Residential hasn't, but business and government facilities have. The net gain compared to a CFL is a further reduction in power requirement and landfill pollution / poisoning from mercury exposure. When compared against incandescent lamps, the majors are power draw and reduction in radiating heat which can affect HVAC costs (more A/C use). I personally like LED's as they're already cheaper then many CFL Edison socket offerings, usually have better lumen output across similar wattage and there's no clean-up hassle if you manage to 'break' one.

Hope that helps.
 
maboblivion said:
so 60 w equivalent led takes 9-15 watts depending on lumens vs a 60w that takes 60 watts. say you got a kitchen fixture with 5 of those puppies and you replace em.... u save barely any electricity ? come on!
Click to expand...

In my kitchen I've got six 9.5W LED downlights consuming a total of 57W; each one of those six lights is putting out more light than a 60W incandescent. If I put in incandescent, I'd be consuming 360W to get not quite as much light - plus 300W of heat.

I've got a total of 44 of these in my place. Instead of consuming a maximum of 2640W on lighting and wasting 2222W of it as heat for an air conditioner to remove during the summer, I'm only consuming 418W, putting out no heat, and not having to get new bulbs for many years.

I am talking about downlights; the last time I looked into the replacements that were shaped like traditional bulbs, those sucked. But that's because the traditional bulb shape sucks, always will, and attempting to make an LED work that way is doing it wrong. LEDs can direct their light in the direction you want it to go. So go with downlight or tracklights or undercabinet lighting or a bunch of other styles to choose from that are all way better.
 
And I quoted the wrong dam thing to start with, I really hate news post threads. Time for bed.
 
All I have to say is I must live in the shittiest area in the world for LED lighting because you guys are able to find some amazing prices on LED lights. The cheapest ones at normal price around me are the cree lights. They are around $12 where a similar CFL is $2. Please anyone tell me where we can get these LEDs that are cheaper than Edison socket cfls.

Here is an article and a recent one about the difference in cost
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/should-i-buy-led-or-cfl-light-bulbs
Here is shows as I said that LED and CFL are essentially tied.

Also DarkStryke noted something very fishy. If these lights are suppose to last so long? Why are the warranties so short? You tell me that a LED lasts 50000 hours then where is my 5 year warranty? I remember when CFLs came out and they were offered with high 5 year plus warranties.


Also the t5 / t8 package LEDs are interesting but from what I have seen they require you to rewire the fixture.
 
Nanan said:
The city of Houston is halfway through the LED rollout and they were claiming $10 million a year in power savings...
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But it probably cost them $20 million to replace all the lights :(

Hopefully the LED street lights are more reliable than the early LED traffic lights, saw too many with 1/2 the LEDs missing.
 
rudy said:
Also DarkStryke noted something very fishy. If these lights are suppose to last so long? Why are the warranties so short? You tell me that a LED lasts 50000 hours then where is my 5 year warranty? I remember when CFLs came out and they were offered with high 5 year plus warranties.
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When I started switching to CFLs several years ago, most came with 5 year warranties, yet I've never used the warranty because it would cost me more to ship back the bulb, than to just buy a new one. The local electric companies subsidize the costs of the CFLs, and I've bought them as cheap as $1 for a 4 pack. They don't seem to have nearly as good subsidizes now, but I stocked up with enough to last me several more years :)

Only LEDs I currently have are flash lights and a couple night lights (safer since they don't get hot light a bulb) for the kids. Still think the LED lights are to expensive and not yet reliable enough.
 
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