Portugal switches on LED street lighting

clipped from www.energyefficiencynews.com The Portuguese city of Pombal has switched on its first installation of solid-state light-emitting diode (LED) street lighting. The new LUXEON® Rebel LEDs from Philips Lumileds are around 60% more efficient that high-pressure sodium lamps, which were initially considered to replace the existing mercury vapour lamps. The new LED street lights consume less than 80 W, have a much longer lifetime (with a 7-year warranty), greater uniformity and reduced glare. The lighting system, which has been developed by Philips Lumileds and optics experts Fraen, along with BlueSpan and Future Lighting Solutions, is now being considered for elsewhere in Portugal. “Implementation in Portugal is being expanded with new installations in 40 different cities starting in May,” says David Marques of BlueSpan. “We see national conversion to solid-state technology as a realistic goal over the next several years.”