Clinton Climate Initiative

Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor lighting systems can account for a significant percentage of a municipal government’s electricity usage. Depending on the size of the city, the infrastructure it manages, and the efficacy of the lighting system, it can be as high as 60 percent. But with innovative new technologies, cities can raise the efficiency standard for outdoor lighting while quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving on energy costs.

C40-CCI Cities works to improve the efficiency of outdoor lighting in cities by focusing on two key areas: advanced streetlights and LED traffic signals. New streetlight technologies can help cities reduce their energy use by up to 70 percent. These technologies include high-efficacy LED, induction, a new generation of high-efficacy ceramic metal halide, and centralized intelligent control systems. By implementing streetlight retrofits, cities save money from the increase in efficiency and can pay back the implementation costs in three to eight years.

While the majority of traffic signals in the United States have been converted to energy-efficient LED lights, worldwide adoption remains low. C40-CCI Cities is helping to address this issue by developing traffic light retrofit projects in cities around the world. By replacing conventional incandescent signals with LEDs, cities can reduce traffic signal energy use by as much as 90 percent. Longer life expectancies of LED signals can reduce maintenance costs by approximately 75 percent. Traffic signal retrofits can pay for themselves through savings in one to three years.