LED City Lighting
This requires pestering your local council, maybe even your Government. One benefit is the kids and oldies like me might get to see the stars again over our larger towns.
Converting outdoor lighting from sodium and metal halide luminaires to LED luminaires is the equivalent on a city basis to households switching to CFLs. Its even better because LEDs have no mercury content and have long life so low maintenance. However, supply of luminaires is an issue and revision of some parts of existing standards.
An initiative has been opened in Nth America where you can read about the benefits. Cities already under way are Raleigh (NC) since beginning of year, Toronto (since July) and (Ann Arbor) just started. Google LED city for benefits and add city name for press releases that provide more info. With each city coming on line businesses are also gearing up.
Better illumination so people feel safer is a cited benefit, but insecurity lighting can and does lead to greater light pollution with consequences for people and wild life and no reduction in crime. If illumination is better, partly due to shorter wavelengths then power can be reduced. Power savings from 40-70% are cited.
LEDs are directional. This requires some careful design to get even lighting but makes cut-off to reduce waste and eliminate nuisance and sky-glow, practicable. Raleigh I know requires 100% cut off. NZ standards allow 3% upward waste and as far as I can see, do not restrict horizontal radiation at all which is just waste. A surround ratio that specifies lighting of footpaths for pedestrian safety re oncoming vehicles operates but in spite of nice words light pollution of adjacent areas and skies is not much considered in practice. Just climb the nearest rise and see how many street lights you can see below you!
I predict led lighting will replace even CFLs in the future as operating voltages are compatible with solar power and
remember zero toxicity. Costs will come down as technology develops.
Noel
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Drop-in LED lighting
I wish to correct this statement: "I predict led lighting will replace even CFLs in the future as operating voltages are compatible with solar power and remember zero toxicity. Costs will come down as technology develops."
In fact drop in replacements for most common lighting, using current wiring and voltages, is already available at a price. A very recent breakthrough in a production method will in a few years see LED household lighting competitive in pricing with existing lighting methods while being comparable if not superior in quality. The main issue with LED replacement lighting is seeing to it that the LEDs have adequate ventilation. While the LEDs run cool compared to other lighting, their life is degraded if the diodes are allowed to heat up. Adequately cooled LED lighting can last from 40,000 hours to about 100,000 hours. While energy saved varies according to user demands, in some instances more than 90% energy saving is quoted.
Noel
Banff installs LED lighting
Banff is in a National Park in the Canadian Rockies. No one can be a resident unless they work in the town. I suppose anyone who gets sacked could run for public office (just joking). They have started installing LED lighting. See image (click on it) and story here:
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/4/11/6
One plus apart from saving in power and maintenance, is that no insect life is attracted to the lights. In Banff the significance of this is not really understood yet but it has drawn attention elsewhere where wild life that feeds on insects is depleted and threatened by light pollution affecting circadian rythms and biasing insect populations so most bats, for instance, can't feed on them, and the one species that does is exposed to unusual predation.
Humans are also affected quite definitely by light pollution including increased stress and anxiety so quite apart from power saving there are lots of reasons for eliminating wasteful and intrusive lighting.
Police in parts of UK I note are even arguing for removal of lights altogether from park walks where assaults occur, there being examples where doing so has led to an immediate improvement. Evidently the almost zero crime in Auckland's CBD during the extended blackout in 1998 drew world attention to the issue. Today I heard of one town in UK where the residents won't permit street lighting and other intrusive outdoor lighting at all and are quite fierce about it.
Noel
Queen goes LED
The Queen has been going over to LED lighting. Outdoors the rules seem to be to do it tastefully, no light into the sky or neighbouring parks or into palace windows. Inside they have started on the chandliers. The first chandelier saw an 80% saving in power.
http://ledsmagazine.com/news/4/12/19
New York is beginning the change to LED outdoor lighting though I think it waste to make a bridge visible for 40 miles.
In the states it is possible, at a price, to get drop-in LED lights to replace fluorescents and incandescents as has been noted elsewhere on this site. You can even buy replacement LEDs for any flashlight, thereby saving hugely on battery replacement - at US$40 each doh!
There is also a film that is already in use in advertising. The film is an encapsulated flat light that can be run from a battery with an inverter to stir up the phosphors at something like 155v at 1 KHz. To give you an idea, A 1 sq metre flat light on your ceiling say, run at half power, will offer the equivalent illumination to a 100w tungsten bulb, draws just 5 watts and will last 10,000 hours - and the price - err the developers require a consultation!!! These flat lights can be dimmed, are non-intrusive, compared to other sign lighting for instance, and can do all sorts of fancy things via remote control.
Noel