The Bay Area Climate Collaborative and Eaton's Cooper Lighting division today announced their collaboration on the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative. The region-wide project is designed to facilitate the upgrade of 200,000+ municipal streetlights to LEDs.

The Bay Area Climate Collaborative (BACC) and Eaton’s Cooper Lighting division today announced a collaboration to accelerate the energy-efficient street lighting market through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative. The region-wide project is designed to facilitate the upgrade of 200,000+ municipal streetlights to advanced light-emitting diode (LED) technology.

LED street lighting benefits local governments in so many ways – lowering energy and maintenance costs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving community safety – but without education, many municipalities don’t know where to begin.”

As a part of this initiative, BACC is delivering leading-edge education and tools to local governments interested in advanced lighting, in partnership with the nationally-recognized UC Davis California Lighting Technology Center. With support from Eaton’s Cooper Lighting division, the initiative will conduct further outreach around the LED lighting opportunity and develop key resources to complement existing guidance such as Next Generation Streetlights: LED Technology and Strategies for Action, a guide for local governments which delivers education and specific steps for municipal streetlight upgrades. Through the initiative, the BACC ultimately will pool regional interest in LED streetlight upgrades to secure improved purchase and financing terms – creating a streetlight upgrade business model that local governments can implement to relieve municipal budgets while bolstering the region’s economy. Over the course of five years, regional upgrades could deliver up to $50 million in reduced costs for local governments, provide over 100,000 metrics tons of carbon dioxide avoidance and create many new clean-energy jobs.

Headquartered in Peachtree City, Georgia, Eaton’s Cooper Lighting division delivers a range of innovative and reliable indoor and outdoor lighting solutions, as well as controls products, specifically designed to maximize performance, energy efficiency and cost savings. The Lighting business serves customers in the commercial, industrial, retail, institutional, residential, utility and other markets. The BACC is a public-private partnership initiative of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, launched by regional civic and business leaders in 2009 to accelerate the Bay Area clean energy economy through high-impact, market-oriented projects that can be replicated and brought to scale.

“LED street lighting benefits local governments in so many ways – lowering energy and maintenance costs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving community safety – but without education, many municipalities don’t know where to begin,” said Mark Eubanks, president, Eaton’s Cooper Lighting division. “As one of the largest LED fixture manufacturers in North America, we are proud to be contributing our expertise to help the BACC and the Next Generation Streetlight Initiative.”

“While energy costs continue to rise and local governments grapple with ongoing budgetary constraints, return-on-investment for LED street lighting is continually improving,” said Rafael Reyes, Executive Director of the Bay Area Climate Collaborative. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Eaton’s Cooper Lighting division to help local governments understand next-generation lighting technologies and save millions from streetlight upgrades.”