The picturesque seaside community of Newburyport, MA received a lighting makeover with LED retrofit project for the street lights as announced by Cree. The project delivered both high quality and significant energy savings.
The current trend in outdoor solid-state lighting (SSL) is to get better light, less glare and more pleasing spectrum. The New England SSL project delivered by LightSmart Energy Consulting in collaboration with Cree produces pleasing and effective lighting while a new trend demonstrating a shift towards municipalities taking control of their street light portfolio.
Newburyport has been recognized as a Green Community due to their ongoing energy saving initiatives throughout the city. Around 20% energy usage has been cut down subsequently after the installation of LED lighting solutions. However, with the municipalities taking a lead to replace streetlights with LED lamps has created an extra opportunity to lower down energy use and save taxpayers money.
Not a long time back such lighting was utility owned and controlled. But, this has changed lately, with many municipalities around the US taking control of their outdoor lighting, including some Southern California cities. In Newburyport, the city was spending around $250,000 dollars annually on its street lights.
Cree RSW luminaire was selected for broader deployment in the streets. The city changed more than 1300 high-pressure sodium (HPS) luminaires ranging from 50–250W with LED fixtures ranging from 30–50W. The city is expected to get $1 million in savings over the life of the luminaires as well as the energy usage for street lights was reduced by 61%.
The city is extremely pleased with the transition to LED-based lights according to Mayor Donna Holoday and the money from the savings can be relocated to other needs, such as public safety, schools, police, roads, and infrastructure.
