If they cut down the trees around some of the street lighting, then the money saved in electricity by the street lights only working from dusk to dawn could help to cut the £3million spend on led street lights
I expect the council is paying about 4p a kWh (wholesale) for its juice, so they would have to save about 4kWh a day.
If the lights are on for 12 hours this is about a third of a kWh per hour. In other words, the LEDs would have to take 330W less than the existing lights.
This seems implausible to me, but I guess they can switch the LEDs off completely in the wee small hours, as well as dimming them the rest of the time.
I'm glad they've started installing them however. I wonder how far from the centre of Birkenhead they will get before they've blown all the cash?
One council states their street lights (non-led) electrickery costs between £40-£80 a year each depending on size and another works out at an average £70 a year. Scotland as a whole averages at £46 each.
I'm still waiting to see the smaller side road lamps after seeing the abysmal older Woodchurch Lane LEDs.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Yes, the Woodchurh lane ones really are appalling.
I was interested to learn Liverpool has decided to switch to LEDs. I have a good view of Liverpool from my home but can't see much evidence of it yet. It is the usual galaxy of horrible orange for the most part
Yes, the Woodchurh lane ones really are appalling.
I was interested to learn Liverpool has decided to switch to LEDs. I have a good view of Liverpool from my home but can't see much evidence of it yet. It is the usual galaxy of horrible orange for the most part
I wonder if this contract covers maintenance of these new lamps? Led's have a long life, but their brightness degrades with time.
We will be seeing them now at their best and brightest, but how good will they be after 10,000 hours of use, which at 12 hours a day is only about two and a quarter years? They may have gone down to between 50% and 70%. This is in theory hardly noticeable, but only time will tell whether it really is.
The LED system they are fitting doesn't put them up to full power initially, as they get older and dimmer they increase the power to offset the ageing.
I was comparing two very similar long, wide roads tonight, one with LED and the other with recent high pressure sodium. They are comparable, maybe the LED just has the edge light and colour wise but there isn't that much in it. I'll try and photograph both with the same camera settings sometime, I have a feeling a camera will show a bigger difference than my eyesight perceives.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Is there any published plan of where these new lights are to be deployed?
If not, why not?
That would involve Wirral Council communicating openly, its hard enough to get information out the Council that they are legally obliged to provide.
You could put a Freedom of Information request in to them on the FOI site, on their usual track record they will answer late and even then may claim immunity or just answer a different question from what you ask.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
Noticed them on the road from Spital dam to lower Bebington (Bromborough road??) the other evening. They were quite impressive and gave a good clear white light.
