Watch the video above: Mississauga switching street lights to LEDs. Laura Zilke reports.
TORONTO – The City of Mississauga is in the process of converting its yellow-orange colour streets light to the natural white lights of Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs.
Work crews began the $26 million project in November 2012 and will continue until December 2014 with just under 49,000 lights left to be changed.
The municipality says it spent $6.1 million in energy costs and $2.3 million in maintenance for street lighting in 2011.
It hopes to reduce that amount by 55 per cent with LEDs, which have a life expectancy of 20 years compared to the five-year life span of traditional lights.
“We are proud to be a leader in implementing this green technology and for being one of the first Canadian cities to have a citywide LED street light program,” said Commissioner of Transportation and Works Department Martin Powell in a media release.
The city says LEDs cut down on the amount of light pollution in neighbourhoods and provide better visibility to pedestrians and motorists.
A new monitoring system included in the retrofits will allow city maintenance staff to check the status of the lights in real time.
However, officials say some of the LEDs are remaining “on” during the day due to a wireless communication issue between the lights and its central controllers called “Gateways.”
The city says this is a temporary problem that will be corrected once all the lights within a specific area is fully converted to LEDs.
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