The Royal Borough of Greenwich is going to replace every single one of it's 20,000 street lights, swapping out the traditional bulbs for modern LED equivalents.
The project will cost £11.5 million to replace them all, secured via a TfL loan awarded to the council, and once complete will save £1 million a year in energy and maintenance costs.
The new light-emitting diode lanterns, known as LEDs, are highly environmentally friendly and highly efficient.
This will mean brighter lights than the old yellow/amber lights, plus can concentrate light only where it is needed, spread light more evenly on a road and also will cause less light pollution.
The 20,0000 new lights will save 6,770,589 kWh per year, reducing the borough's street lighting energy consumption by 74 per cent and on top of financial savings will also reduce CO2 consumption by 2,080 tonnes per year - the equivalent of driving a medium sized car from Greenwich to Edinburgh and back 9,000 times.
The loan comes from the The Mayor of London’s Energy Efficiency Fund (MEEF), providing "competitive and flexible" long-term finance to the council.
This will enable the borough to accelerate the rollout of streetlighting in Greenwich, and the savings from the energy and maintenance costs will be used in part to repay the loan over a period of 19 years.
Fifteen thousand lantern replacements will be completed in around a year and around 5,000 lamp posts will be replaced over two to three years.
Cllr Sarah Merrill, Cabinet Member for Environment, Sustainability and Transport, called the new LED light street upgrade a "significant piece of work demonstrating our commitment to tackling the climate emergency and reaching our ambitious target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030."
The replacements will be done in priority order and as each street is due the Council will write to residents before installation starts.
Most units being replaced are post top lanterns only. This is a relatively quick process and no digging in the street is required and no interruption to power. To change a lantern takes around 20 minutes.
The contract to install the lights has been awarded to FM Conway and works will start this summer, likely in September.
Find out more here.
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