Parks and Street Lights Office, Taipei City Government has been replacing HPS lamps with LED lamps that save more energy and are much brighter since early 2017. A new NTD 240 million budget will be granted to remove the remaining 20 thousand HPS lamps in 2018. The project is expected to be completed by the end of June, 2018. HPS lamp will soon be history.
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On Sanmin Rd., Taipei City, LED lamp replacement project is finished. (Image: the Parks and Street Lights Office, Taipei City Government) |
In the past, Taipei city government prioritized costs, so mercury street lights were the top choice. Later on, considering the lighting effect, the government replaced them with HPS lamps. However, there was a drawback: mercury in both traditional mercury street lights and HPS lamps when processed can lead to hazardous pollution that would contaminate the environment. Taipei city government thus decided to replace them with LED lamps that are without hazardous metal.
As LED lighting industry matured up, LED lamps became more efficient, longer-lasting, and less power-consuming. Street Lights Section Chief Sen-hao Yang pointed out, each LED street lamp can save 40% energy. If all the street lamps in Taipei city were replaced by LED lamps, 1,067 kWh power would be saved, and 5,730 thousand kilograms of carbon emission will be reduced. This is equivalent to one-year carbon sequestration of one and a half of the Daan Forest Park in Taiwan.
Yang expressed, the new type of LED lamp the government chooses costs 20~30% higher than the conventional LED lamp does, but it saves more energy, provides better luminous efficiency, and lights up wider area. There are nearly 150 thousand street lights in Taipei city. Among them, mercury street lights are totally replaced. As for HPS lamps there are totally 31.53 thousand ones on the city streets. Since this June, about 10 thousand HPS lamps have been demolished. The remaining will also be pulled down next year and the makeover is anticipated to be completed in June 2018.
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