Cumbria Joins List of Regions Switching to Energy-Efficient LED Street Lamps

Cumbria has become the latest region to upgrade its street lights to energy-efficient alternatives, maximising savings for the county council and helping to protect the environment of the beautiful area. Their planned installation of almost 12,000 LED light bulbs along the winding country roads in the county is expected to save around £430,000 a year in energy and maintenance, in another great example of modern lighting technology streamlining costs while boosting performance.

The council will be investing around £7.6 million over the next three years to acquire and install the bulbs, and they will also be reviewing the 33,000 remaining street lights in the region to explore whether they could reduce their hours of usage or dim them to conserve energy. The new bulbs are confirmed to be LED light bulbs, the most efficient type on the market. The high-performance bulbs produce more light using less energy - the energy that they do consume is almost completely channelled into the creation of light, rather than losing waste energy in heat form, as many incandescent bulbs do.

Steven Ellwood, Managing Director of lighting provider BLT Direct, says, \It\s always fantastic to hear that yet another council is adopting an energy-efficient, cost-cutting method to street lighting. Cumbria residents and those travelling through the area will benefit greatly from the revamped road lights; LEDs are much brighter than their older incandescent ancestors, and they consume much less energy. This results in cost savings for the council - savings which can be channelled into something more urgent and pressing.

Cumbria currently spends around £3.7 million on street lighting every year, of which £2 million is spent on energy costs. As the light bulbs are installed across the county, the total energy expenditure will decrease until the installation is complete in 2016/17, when the total savings will take energy spend down to just £1.57 million every year.

The northern region joins many other areas in the country in adopting this technology, with Gloucestershire, Dorset, Jersey, Brighton, Manchester and countless already making the most of the energy-efficient solutions available to them. As the number of LED street lights increase, the countrys carbon footprint as a whole will decrease, and at a time of extensive cuts to councils and local authorities, the savings facilitated by the lights will be of great use to many areas.