Former US President Bill Clinton today announced that his foundation will work with the city of Los Angeles to replace 140,000 streetlights with energy-efficient LED lighting over the next five years. The project would be the “largest LED street lighting retrofit project ever undertaken by a city to date,” according to the William J. Clinton Foundation.

In addition to lowering energy consumption, the new LED streetlights would also improve public lighting and save the city money on light fixture replacements. While standard streetlight lamps last between four and six years, the LED lights have a lifespan of 10 to 12 years.

The new lights would also reduce nighttime light pollution, known as “sky glow.”

Once completed, the retrofit project is expected to reduce the city’s energy costs by 40 percent and cut carbon emissions by about 40,500 tons a year — the equivalent of removing 6,700 cars from the roads each year. The improvements will also help the city speed up its replacement of spent bulbs, as the new LED fixtures will feature remote monitoring units that automatically report failures to the Bureau of Street Lighting.

“If every city followed the example of Los Angeles and reduced the electricity used by their streetlights by 50 percent, it would be equivalent to eliminating over 2.5 of those coal plants per year,” President Clinton said. “We would do that while saving taxpayers money. And by doing that, we would also reclaim our night sky.”

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