Bellingen Street Lights to go LED

Over six hundred and seventy (670) streetlights across the Bellingen Shire are set to be replaced with LEDs, saving Council an estimated $76,000 per year. This will reduce the energy used by the Shire’s street lights by more than a quarter.

The new lights will save enough electricity to power about 16 homes for a year and the reduction in carbon emissions will be the same as planting about 1600 trees.

Bellingen Shire Mayor, Cr. Dominic King said “Changing our street lights to LED is a fantastic outcome for our Shire. It gives us significant cost and energy savings and reduces our carbon emissions by approximately 64 tonnes per year. This is because LED lights require significantly less maintenance than our current lights and use much less electricity”.

This initiative forms part of the Bellingen Shire Emissions Reduction Plan (BERP). Street lighting currently represents about 11 per cent of Council’s carbon footprint and this change will reduce that by around 25 per cent.

LED lights offer several advantages over traditional technologies. Apart from significant savings in cost and energy, LEDs are more directional so can reduce light going in unwanted directions such as into windows of homes. The lights also throw less light into the sky, helping to keep the night sky dark and protecting star visibility.

The light from LEDs is also much clearer and more natural than many older-style fittings, such as sodium lamps.

At this stage, only lights in residential streets across the shire will be changed. Lights on main roads will not be replaced, nor will decorative lighting.

Essential Energy will undertake the works which are expected to begin towards the end of 2018.

For further information contact Council’s Sustainability Officer Lyn Delgado on 6655 7300.