LED Street Lights

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Cities across California are excited about the energy and maintenance savings potential of LED street lights. As a leader in energy efficiency, PG&E is working with lighting manufacturers across the nation, the Department of Energy, and state and local customers to help bring this technology to market.

PG&E's LED Street Light Program launched May 2009. Initially, it applies only to customer-owned street lights billed at PG&E’s non-metered LS-2 rate. Financial incentives for metered customer-owned street lights will follow at a later date, as will incentives for other types of outdoor LED lighting.

Program Components

The LED Street Light Program offers two types of incentives for customers interested in replacing traditional street lights billed at a fixed LS-2 rate (customer-owned and –maintained) with LED fixtures:

• First, customers who have installed or replaced existing street light fixtures after May 1st, 2009 with LED fixtures will be able to switch to a lower billing rate under the LS-2 rate schedule
• Second, customers who perform such replacements will be eligible for a rebate for every qualified LED fixture purchased and installed after May 1, 2009.
• Learn more about PG&E's LED Street Light Rebates if you are a street light customer with an LS-2 rate schedule and would like to participate in the program.

Complementing the LED Street Light program

PG&E offers a LED Street Light Turnkey Replacement Service, which provides a one-stop solution for customers who want to improve their energy efficiency, while minimizing cost and labor resource impacts. The service provides significant cost savings when compared with the project management expense associated with city personnel or city-acquired subcontracted labor. Learn more.

LED Street Light Benefits

Key advantages of quality LED street lights include:

• Improved night visibility due to higher color rendering, higher color temperature and increased illuminance uniformity
• Significantly longer lifespan
• Lower energy consumption
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Instant-on with no run-up or re-strike delays
• No mercury, lead or other known disposable hazards
• Lower environmental footprint
• An opportunity to implement programmable controls (e.g. bi-level lighting)

With more than 535,000 customer-owned LS-2 street lights in PG&E’s service territory, a big difference can be made right here! Many steps have already been taken in this direction. On March 25, 2009, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Ed Harrington announced the deployment of 50 energy-efficient LED street lights in the city. See news coverage of this event.

It’s important, however, to select quality LED fixtures that will provide these benefits consistently over time. To assist customers, PG&E has developed stringent criteria for qualifying LED fixtures to participate in the rebate component of this program. Customers who install non-qualified LED fixtures will still be able to switch to the lower LS-2 LED rate schedule, but will not be eligible for the rebate.

Learn more about PG&E-owned street and outdoor lighting. You can also email us.