The UK Green Investment Bank (UK GIB) is making funding available to local authorities interested in switching to low energy streetlights, reports Edie.net.
Streetlighting can account for as much as 30% of a local authority’s energy consumption and is one of their largest single costs with an electricity bill of more than £300m each year.
Despite this expense, fewer than one million lamps are low energy. To tackle increasing costs, the UKGIB has launched a new loan product, the Green Loan, which has been designed to finance public sector energy efficiency projects, ensuring that repayments are made through savings.
The funding aims to encourage local authorities to switch to low energy lighting as the electricity used by regular UK streetlights produces 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year – equivalent to the electricity consumption of 674,000 households and the emissions of 330,000 cars on the road.
