Mayor drives energy efficiency with London’s largest street lighting investment

London Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London (TfL) have agreed on a major new energy efficiency lighting programme that will see the capital significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.


The road lighting project, the largets ever undertaken in the UK, aims to reduce associated CO2 by around 9,700 tonnes a year and reduce energy consumption by more than 40% by 2016.

The programme will involve a new system to monitor and manage street lighting and dynamically control levels of lighting depending on use. In addition, the project will see the current ‘conventional’ lighting replaced with Light Emitting Diodes (LED).

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “With tens of thousands of lights marking the way on our road network it makes complete sense to focus energy and resources on bringing them up to 21st century standards.

“This is the largest investment to modernise street lighting on major roads in our capital’s history and will not only cut carbon emissions and save money but it will also lead to even better and safer roads for Londoners,” he added.

Across London, TfL has some 52,000 street lights, and as part of the Mayor’s pledge to cut CO2 emissions, TfL has begun implementing the energy saving plan which will be delivered over the next three years.

In addition to efficiency gains the lower electricity consumption will contribute to savings of around £1.85m a year.

TfL director of asset management, Dana Skelley, said: “The performance and cost effectiveness of energy efficient lighting has improved considerably over the last few years. Our aim is to provide assets fit for the future and this programme to upgrade lighting on the capital’s busiest roads is a simple, yet hugely effective way to not only reduce carbon emissions but to also reduce costs whilst providing better lighting of our road network.”

Leigh Stringer

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