A PROJECT replacing Hampshire’s streetlights has saved enough energy to power more than 1,400 homes for a whole year.

Hampshire County Council is celebrating the third anniversary of a five-year programme to replace 150,000 streetlights, illuminated signs and bollards with the latest in lighting technology to reduce cut energy emissions.

The scheme was launched as part of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) along with Southampton City Council and West Sussex County Council.

In Southampton, the project to replace thousands of the city’s street lights is well under way. The city received a £30m share as part of the PFI initiative. Replacement work in Southampton began in 2011 and is expected to finish in 2015.

Engineers are currently working in the Coxford area, while areas such as Millbrook, Bevois, Swathling, Freemantle and Redbridge are already benefitting from replacement lighting.

It will see the majority of the city’s 28,000 street lights, illuminated signs and bollards replaced or upgraded with the latest energy efficient equipment. This includes 16,500 lamp column bulbs and 1,000 bollards.

Started in April 2010, the Hampshire County Council project has so far seen almost 39,000 complete units (lamp posts and lanterns) and a further 36,000 lanterns replaced or updated. As part of the project, 50,000 remote monitoring systems have also been fitted to the upgraded streetlamps, which give the ability to dim the lights remotely, report faults automatically and alter the switch-on/off times to reduce energy consumption.

This combination of energy-efficient lights and remote dimming has already reduced Hampshire’s annual streetlight consumption by 8 million kWh (from a pre-project figure of 50m kWh per year to a current figure of 42m kWh per year). This saving could power over 1,400 homes for a whole year.

From 2015 Hampshire County Council expects its total annual energy savings to double.

As all large public and private sector organisations are obliged to pay for their carbon emissions (currently £16 per metric tonne of emitted carbon) this represents further savings for Hampshire’s residents.

Southampton City Council housing and sustainability member Councillor Warwick Payne said the improvements – coupled with a scheme to dim lighting between midnight and 5am to reduce overall energy consumption by 17 per cent –- will help slash the city’s carbon footprint by 40 per cent by 2020.

He said: “Replacing the city’s older and energy inefficient street lights means we are being kind to the environment and kind to our pockets, meaning that in these difficult times we will be able to protect more services elsewhere in the council.”