LED Street Lighting Improvement Plan

Published On

05/12/2024

Council manages street lighting services across the Central Coast, working closely with Ausgrid who own the street lighting infrastructure. Together we are always looking for opportunities to increase sustainability and reduce environmental impacts associated with street lighting.

The primary purpose of street lighting is to guide pedestrians and motorists in identifying infrastructure within the roadway, such as roundabouts, pedestrian and intersection treatments.

In conjunction with Ausgrid and South Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC), Council undertook a project for the roll-out of Ausgrid’s LED Residential Street Lighting Replacement Program. This program saw older, high-energy residential streetlights replaced with new low-energy LED lighting to provide significant cost savings. It also provided the community with more effective lighting, reduced light pollution in the night sky and lowered greenhouse gas emissions.

Following the success of this program, which focused on local roads in your neighbourhood, Council then focused on replacing streetlights on main roads such as Sparks Road and the Central Coast Highway.

There have been more than 15,000 streetlights upgraded across the Central Coast. A further roll out will see decorative street lighting, often seen in CBDs and some residential estates, as the focus on the next stage.

The introduction of this program will provide approximately $1.5M in electricity costs savings per year.
The newer efficient LED street lighting has been installed in accordance with Ausgrid’s technical guidelines to ensure that the level of glare on adjacent property is lower than thresholds specified in Australian Standards. The LED luminaires direct the light downward and there's less "spill" of light sideways and upwards into the night sky.
The residential street lights have been installed with a colour temperature of 3000K - this is a slightly warmer or yellowish tint than main roads, to assist with reducing the impact on human and animal circadian rhythm. Main road street lights are a brighter 4000K as this has been proven to significantly improve visibility for motorists and materially improves road safety at night.
The LED street lights require less electricity to operate, therefore they produce less carbon and greenhouse gases. Additionally, the older style mercury vapour street lighting has been safely disposed of and is no longer used across the network.
In addition, the new street lighting requires less maintenance, inspection and repair.
For main road street lighting the infrastructure has been fitted with smart controls, however are currently not operational. In the future the smart controls on main roads will enable remote identification of street lighting faults, optimise maintenance, measure energy use and facilitate off-peak dimming and trimming. These features, once enabled, will provide further environmental and cost saving benefits. No CCTV cameras have been installed as part of this project.
To report a street light fault you can visit Ausgrid’s website at https://www.ausgrid.com.au/In-your-community/Our-services/Streetlights#!/map or by calling 13 13 88.
For enquiries regarding street lighting, please lodge a request with council via our online customer service centre at Customer Service Centre or by calling 4306 7900.
The 29 councils participating in the street lighting upgrade include: Bayside Council, Burwood Council, Canada Bay Council, Canterbury Bankstown Council, Central Coast Council, Cessnock City Council, City of Parramatta Council, City of Ryde Council, City of Sydney, Cumberland City Council, Georges River Council, Hornsby Shire Council, Inner West Council, Ku-Ring-Gai Council, Lake Macquarie City Council, Lane Cove Municipal Council, Mosman Municipal Council, Municipality of Hunters Hill, North Sydney Council, Northern Beaches Council, Port Stephens Council, Randwick Council, Singleton Shire Council, Strathfield Council, Sutherland Shire Council, Upper Hunter Shire Council, Waverley Council, Willoughby City Council, Woollahra Municipal Council.
Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC) is a key stakeholder in developing and implementing the Program. Recognising the strong environmental gains made, SSROC submitted the project and won a 2023 LGNSW Excellence in the Environment Award, for which we were a participating Council. For more information on the Program, visit https://ssroc.nsw.gov.au/projects/street-lighting-improvement-program/