LED street lighting upgrades

Recent advancements in LED technology present Council with the opportunity to significantly reduce the energy use and maintenance costs associated with street lighting along its roads. In addition, it allows Council to address issues with the current lights, which are inferior from an energy, maintenance, and quality perspective.

Around 2,825 major and minor road street lights will be replaced with energy-efficient and better-quality LED alternatives in this project.

The project is being funded by Latrobe City Council and the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, with rebates from the Victorian Energy Upgrades program and DNSP contributions available at project completion.

The changeover of street lights involves a single elevated work platform with two to three crew members. It takes less than 5 minutes to replace a street light, so any disruptions to traffic flow in your street should not last long. All cars can remain parked on the streets.

The LED lights chosen by Council have been approved for use by AusNet, which is the distribution company that owns the lighting infrastructure in the municipality. The lights have been tested to ensure they meet relevant Australian Standards regarding safety and light levels. Trial results throughout Victoria have demonstrated that they have superior performance to the existing lights.

The new lights have:

• Greater uniformity of light across and along the street
• Better colour rendering and visibility
• Less depreciation of the light output over time
• Lower maintenance costs

This project will save energy and money, and drastically reduce greenhouse emissions. It will:

• Significantly reduce energy consumption and associated costs
• Replace around 2,825 street lights with more energy-efficient and better-quality LED alternatives
• Save Latrobe Council over $1 million over the life of the project.
• Save around 11,700 tonnes of greenhouse emissions between now and 2040
• Reduce energy consumption by 977 MWh per year.

The luminaire (the main body of the light) will last about 20 years, as will the LED chips. The photoelectric cells last 10 years.

The street lighting infrastructure is owned and maintained by the local distribution network service provider AusNet.

Yes! The recycling of old lights that are taken down during a bulk change is the responsibility of the installer. The tender for installation of the lights specifies waste disposal requirements including the recycling of around 98 per cent of the old lights. For example, the glass collected is recycled into products such as glass wool insulation for homes. The mercury is distilled and reused in the dental industry to manufacture amalgam. The aluminium body and other fixed components (for example, steel screws, copper wires) are collected and end up as ingots used in the industry.