Source: Great Lakes IT Report
by Matt Roush

Energy is too precious to waste, and so are taxpayer dollars, which is why the city of Ann Arbor looked for ways to get more bang for its streetlighting buck.

How the city is applying the latest in LED technology to light its streets and reduce power consumption by 50 percent is among the highlights in the latest edition of ElectricTV.net.

Across the United States, local governments are slashing budgets, presenting significant challenges to those entrusted with providing services to the community. The city of Ann Arbor suffered a 60 percent reduction, spurring the search for areas to cut costs, including the city's power consumption. The city had been spending more than $1.4 million a year. on street lighting.

"We're talking about taxpayer dollars, and the money we spent on streetlights every year was a big chunk of change," said Andrew Brix, acting director of the city's energy program.

Rather than simply letting the streets go dark, the city embarked on a pilot program to replace its 6,600 streetlamps with energy-saving LEDs, light emitting diodes. The measured result after installing an initial 1,000 LED lights was a decrease in energy use from 120 watts per fixture to 56. As a result says Brix, "We cut our overall bill in half," with the savings paying for the replacement program in just four years.

A joint production of the National Electrical Contractors Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ElectricTV.net is the only web TV program dedicated to reporting the latest developments in the electrical construction and information systems industries.

To view, visit http://electrictv.net/ledstreetlights.aspx.