New street installation for Hertfordshire almost complete

Hertfordshire County Council is close to finishing a programme of converting all of the county’s street lighting to more efficient LED lighting, on time and within budget.

The final stages of the countywide project are currently being completed, in the district of Three Rivers and, once finished, all of Hertfordshire’s street lighting will be under one central control system - with the exception of some areas where specialist lighting is in place.

The switch to LED streetlights has been a significant factor in a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from street lighting – avoiding almost 12,000 tonnes of CO2 a year – as well as saving Hertfordshire’s taxpayers around £5million a year on the council’s electricity bill.

Now, with almost all of the county’s streetlights having been converted to LED and controlled by the one central system, it is possible to dim lights and modify timings in specific areas, allowing more flexibility in the way the county council can save money.

Councillor Phil Bibby, the County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways and Environment, said: “It’s fantastic that the process of installing these highly efficient LED streetlights across the county has almost been completed and, with the intelligent control system in place, we can make some big savings by dimming and switching off lights when they’re not needed.

“It also means that if there are good reasons to leave the lights on longer in various areas, we may now be able to do this without increasing our energy usage.”