Miami Lakes is one of the first municipalities in South Florida to convert all Town-owned streetlights to LED. The project, part of the Town’s strategic initiatives, will replace approximately 900 streetlights throughout Miami Lakes, including standard streetlights (called “cobra heads”) and decorative streetlights.
The LED retrofit project supports two goals in the Town’s 10-year strategic plan – achieve universal environmental sustainability in public and private environments, operations and infrastructure; and achieve national recognition as a ‘Model Town’ for creativity, education, innovation and use of technology.
LED streetlight fixtures will not only save energy and require less maintenance, but will also provide residents will better light quality on streets and roadways, while creating more consistent streetlighting throughout the Town.
The LED conversion program is estimated to reduce:
• 238,034 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year,
• Energy costs by approximately 65 percent or $25,000 per year,
• Maintenance costs by at least 45 percent or approximately $45,000 per year, and
• Staff monitoring costs of $2,000 per year.
Based on the estimated reduction is energy and maintenance costs, the payback period for the LED retrofit conversion will be about 5.5 years.
For residents who may be concerned about temperature in and color of the LED fixtures, the lights are 3000 Kelvin light temperature which is a warmer color compared to early generation LEDs. This is the recommended color temperature to provide a clear, but soft light.