£15m to replace 54,000 street lights

New energy efficient street lights are to replace around 54,000 street lights across Edinburgh by the end of 2020, saving the city millions, increasing public safety and leading to fewer lighting faults.

Councillors on the Finance and Resources Committee have approved a £15.219 million contract with Amey Highways to replace the street lights with energy efficient lamps.

The move follows a 2014 pilot project to replace 7000 obsolete lanterns with light emitting diode (LED) lights. These ‘white light’ technology lamps give off a clearer light and can last for over 20 years compared to the existing lights’ current life span of two to four years.

The new technology enhances community safety by making CCTV images clearer and allowing light levels to be varied.

The council has roughly 65,000 street lights, costing around £3 million in energy alone each year. Energy costs continue to rise and the current lanterns are becoming obsolete, making them harder and costlier to maintain.

£24.5 million will be spent on upgrading all the city’s street lights to pre-empt these increases, replacing inefficient lanterns with modern, energy efficient and environmentally friendly ones.

This will achieve savings for the taxpayer of £54 million over 20 years.

As well as saving millions, replacing the lanterns will help Edinburgh reduce CO2 emissions and comply with Scottish government energy efficiency legislation.

A dynamic street lighting monitoring and control system (CMS) will also be installed, giving much greater, centralised control over the city’s lighting. It will provide real-time monitoring and reporting to identify and track faults, and will track actual energy consumption.

Lesley Macinnes, transport convener councillor, said: “When we rolled out these energy efficient lights as a pilot project in 2014, they were very well received by local residents, who told us they preferred the crisper, brighter light to the orangey glow of the old, inefficient street lights.

"Now that we've appointed a contractor, we can make the final preparations for rolling out energy efficient street lights to communities right across the Capital. Work is scheduled to start this summer, continuing on a ward-by-ward basis until the end of 2020. We'll make every effort to minimise disruption to residents and businesses throughout and will target information to communities as the roll-out comes to their area.”