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California Streetlight Survey Offers Important Insights into Outdoor Lighting Needs

Whether you’re a business owner who is exploring on-property decorative LED lighting, or you’re a Bay Area developer who wants to deploy a cost-efficient outdoor lighting system, a new California Streetlight Survey can shine some light (so to speak) on your options and best practices.

California outdoor LED lightingKelly Cunningham of the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) at UC Davis discussed her and team’s survey results at the Illuminating Engineering Society’s recent Annual Conference in Miami. Cunningham’s team found that over three-quarters of CA municipal lights used traditional high pressure sodium (HPS) lamp technology. Only 2% of lights leveraged LED or induction technology. Cities in the Golden State aren’t exactly racing to be on the cutting edge of lighting innovation, in other words!

Why are local governments so conservative about their lighting choices? Cunningham and her team suspect that municipalities want to see a return on their lighting investments in terms of a few years as opposed to a decade. More than half of the municipalities surveyed maintain their own lights. While the statistics suggest a conservative mentality, Cunningham’s data revealed curious nuances. Savings didn’t seem to incentivize innovation. But many stakeholders did appreciate the environmental case for newer/better lighting.

The survey found mixed signals on adaptive controls. Adaptive lighting does offer the potential for tremendous cost savings and flexibility, but many city leaders and other stakeholders worried that certain technologies, like static occupancy sensing, aren’t ready for the big time. (You don’t want the freeway lights to fail due to a software glitch.)

If you’re a business owner or property developer who’s curious about newer lighting technologies, such as outdoor LED lighting or adaptive lighting, you probably have a less conservative viewpoint of the subject.

You obviously want to ensure that your property or facility meets regulations and provides safe lighting for employees and visitors. But you also have an eye on the bottom line. A new kind of “lighting paradigm” for your business or facility may make a difference to your budget and play a small, non-negligible role in reducing your energy consumption.

For help with your California outdoor lighting needs, get in touch with the exceptional team at Great Basin Lighting.