Lighting the Clean Revolution: The rise of LEDs and what it means for cities

  LED (light-emitting diodes) are revolutionizing the energy efficiency of lighting. They are also infinitely scalable, extremely reliable, and have a much longer lifetime than almost all other types of lighting. But like any new technology, they face barriers to adoption from a market unfamiliar with their benefits.

This report explores the global market status and potential for LED and smart control technology, and provides practical guidance for policy makers and lighting managers who want to scale up and finance large-scale LED retrofits.

We developed this guidance using the summarized results of LightSavers, a global program we established with the support of the HSBC Climate Partnership to accelerate market adoption of outdoor LED lighting and smart lighting controls.

The report demonstrates that LEDs are ready to be brought to scale in outdoor applications. The independent and verifiable results from the LightSavers trials and accompanying public surveys give compelling evidence that many commercially-available, outdoor LED products offer high quality light, durability, and significant electricity savings in the range of 50-70%.