Tesco will start full-scale LED lighting deployment in its Express supermarkets this week, a move the company said will cut 30% energy consumption compared with similar stores.

All external signs at the Loughborough store, as well as lighting on the sales floor and in staff areas, feature LEDs. Meanwhile, the store's cold rooms, fridges and freezers are also lit by LEDs. The only part of the store not to feature the cutting-edge technology is the bakery oven, where the company found temperatures are too high for LEDs to function.

Emmily Sjölander, environmental programme manager at Tesco, said that if the store proves effective at delivering promised energy savings, the company could deploy LEDs across its 2,700 UK stores and incorporate them into its new-build programme. "If this delivers the energy savings we have estimated, it is likely that we would replicate this lighting system at other stores." she said.

Tesco has a target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and has opened a string of flagship "Zero Carbon" stores in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Powys, and Dublin to trial new energy efficient technology since 2009. Its latest Zero Carbon store opened in Cefn Mawr near Wrexham in March.