http://www.luminhome.com/ Maui County plans to replace its streetlights with more efficient LED lighting, following other counties in Hawaii, including Honolulu and Kauai. Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa, a speaker at this week’s Maui Energy Conference, said that at some point, the island will be heading in that direction. He also noted during his speech that the county, which includes the islands of Maui, Molokai and Lanai, is sticking to its ambitious goal of becoming the first islands in the United States to achieve 100 percent renewable energy.

The City and County of Honolulu is looking to replace its 52,000 streetlights with LED lighting after a 2013 pilot effort showed that a retrofit of this type provides significant cost-savings, greater efficiency and increased visibility.

Compared to existing streetlight fixtures, the new LED lights reduce energy consumption by an average of 50 percent, and have a payback period of four years.

City streetlights consume about $6 million in electricity annually and the switch to LED is projected to save roughly $3 million in energy costs each year for the City and County of Honolulu.

In 2013, Kauai County and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative said that the two entities are working on a plan to retrofit 2,800 county streetlights with LED fixtures.

The county was KIUC’s largest customer in 2013, consuming more than 20 million kilowatt hours of electricity at a cost of more than $8 million. The lighting effort was part of a signed memorandum of understanding between the county and KIUC aimed at reducing the Garden Isle’s fossil fuel consumption and lower the cost of energy.

By working together, KIUC and county officials said that the programs should to reduce the amount of electricity consumed by the county and accelerate the island’s transition to a more sustainable energy future. KIUC’s goal is to generate 50 percent of its power by using renewable resources by 2023

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