Nicola Martin, a businesswoman who moved to New Zealand six years ago, wants to replace the country's existing 340,000 street lights, which are mostly high-pressure sodium lamps, with light emitting diode (LED) bulbs.

Two years ago, Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand, said public lighting was the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from local councils.

In 2008, New Zealand had released the Efficient Lighting Strategy which included a goal to eliminate the inefficient street lights. While the country still has not decided what to do with these poorly designed and implemented street lighting which cost councils from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of their emissions.

Solar Bright, a company specialized in lighting for parks, car parks, reserves, walkways, billboards and security lights, was testing the LED lights to confirm its energy saving and long life span advantages already found all over the world, said Martin, managing director of the company which is expanding into LED technology.

Martin said the company did not want to replace all street lights with solar versions, but said the lights were cost effective in rural areas or places not near cabling.