Maalot-Tarshiha intends to become the world's first town to be fully lit by LED lighting. This week, the municipality began replacing 13,000 street lamps and lighting units in public buildings with electronic units. The total investment in replacing the town's lighting with LED will be NIS 12 million, but the municipality estimates that it will see a return on the investment within four years.
The Maalot-Tarshiha Municipality's electricity bill is NIS 5 million a year, and the conversion to LED will allow it to reduce the bill by NIS 3.5 million a year. On average, lighting accounts for 40% of municipalities' electricity bills, but the proportion at Maalot-Tarshiha is double, apparently because of the limited use of air conditioners. The municipality therefore expects that the switch to LED will lower its lighting cost from NIS 4 million a year to just NIS 800,000. The lifespan of an LED light is estimated at 10-15 years, and the output of an average LED bulb will be just 50 watts, compared with 270 watts for the sodium bulbs currently used by municipalities.
Maalot-Tarshiha hopes to complete the replacement of the town's lighting units by the end of this year, and claims that this will make it the first town in the world to switch to LED. Major cities, such as Los Angeles and Seattle, are currently carrying out projects to replace city lights with LED, but these projects will not be completed before 2014.
Juganu Systems Ltd. is the Israeli company that will be responsible for the development and installation of the LED system, and it will also supply the Maalot-Tarshiha Municipality with the central control system that will control the strength of the lighting in all parts of the town through 12 switchboards. The control system will be Internet-based, and will allow the system manager to manage it, among other ways, through a personal smartphone.
The switch to LED will also save 35,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year from the conservation of electricity. Ernst & Young Kost Forer Gabbay & Kaiserer partner and cleantech advisory and global incentives groups leader Itay Zetelny says that the project has government support for the reduction of emissions.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 23, 2013
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