Las Vegas Strip to Use LED Bulbs, Saving $2 Million a Year

Las Vegas, also known as Sin City, is a place of decadent indulgences and extravagant expense, yet that doesn’t put the place above trying to cut costs and save the environment where it can. The bright lights that line the Las Vegas Strip attract millions of tourists every year, yet require a huge supply of energy, and cost millions a year to run.

As part of a $20.8 million programme to reduce costs and improve energy efficiency in the city, 42,000 new LED street lights were installed earlier in the year, to replace the traditional bulbs. According to an article on Energy Manager Today, this has so far managed to half the city’s electricity bill, helping save around $2 million a year, and due to the fact that LEDs last three times longer than traditional bulbs, the maintenance costs have also fallen massively.

All main and residential streets were retrofitted with LED bulbs by March, and another 10,000 decorative lights will be replaced in the coming months as the final stage in the programme.

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The Las Vegas Strip.

It is predicted that the new LED blubs will last 10-13 years before needing replacement, meaning that they will earn their money back easily. And the city of Las Vegas will not just keep the $2 million it saves each year, but has vowed to use the money to finance other green projects; such as a 300 kilowatt solar power installation, and the renovation of a million square feet of public buildings to improve their energy efficiency standards.

Tom Perrigo, the sustainability officer for the city of Las Vegas, said that so far he is seeing that “we're actually exceeding our projected savings. Payback for the entire cost of the project will take seven to 10 years.”

Other cities around the US have also begun to install LED bulbs to replace their old street lights. Earlier in the year City of Los Angeles finished installing over 141,000 new LED lights in what was the world’s largest LED replacement project. The cities of Austin and San Antonio in Texas also plan to install 35,000 and 20,000 LED bulbs respectively.

By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com