The city of Austin is getting brighter and more energy-efficient by implementing an ambitious program to upgrade its municipal lighting to LED.

Austin and Austin Energy recently retrofitted a floor of the One Texas Center Parking Garage with 47-watt LED (light-emitting diode) fixtures from Beta LED, an upgrade that was sponsored in part by the LED City program. The program encourages government and industry to deploy and promote LED lighting technology across the full range of municipal infrastructure to save energy, protect the environment, reduce maintenance costs, improve light quality, and save tax dollars. Austin joins Toronto, Raleigh, NC, and Ann Arbor, MI, in evaluating and deploying LED lighting technology across their municipal infrastructures. 

“We plan to evaluate LED solutions that have the potential to reduce energy consumption by 47 to 90 percent over traditional lighting solutions,” Will Wynn, Mayor of Austin, said in a press statement. The combined annualized savings to the City could be $10,178 per year with a simple payback of 6.5 years.

Over the last few years, LED fixtures have been lighting up all over Austin: in a hallway at Austin Energy headquarters, in streetlights on Barton Springs, in the Palmer Events Center marquee sign and in the water fountain at the new Palmer Events Center Park. Additional test installations are planned throughout the city, and by retrofitting 5,000 streetlights Austin could see a savings of up to $500,000 a year. LEDs typically last 5-7 times longer than the prior fixture bulbs, so Austin could achieve an additional savings of $27,000 in replacement lamp costs over the life of the LEDs.

That’s what you call a win-win-win for the city, the environment, and the taxpayers.