Riyadh is leaning toward solar energy to boost an energy-saving drive in street lighting in a bid to reduce fuel consumption. (Al-Riyadh photo)

The Riyadh Municipality has embarked on using energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) lamps for street lighting in the city, local media said.

The municipality has also tended to depend more on solar energy to boost an energy-saving drive in street lighting in a bid to reduce fuel consumption and minimize gas emissions and pollution levels at power generating plants, Al-Riyadh daily said.

Additionally, the municipality plans to apply remote control systems in lighting streets to rationalize energy consumption and speed up repair works in case of technical faults in street lighting networks in all districts of the city.

The use of energy-saving LED lamps will cope with the increased use of street lighting networks as a result of the city’s rapid growth with more than 290,000 lighting units (lamps) currently being used in city streets consuming more than 6 million barrels of oil products needed every year to operate power plants.

The municipality is geared to expand the application of LED technology gradually in all street lighting units through the import and installation of 10,250 LED-based technology lamps. Three thousand units have already been installed in some parts of city streets, which represents the first stage of the project, the paper said.

According to Wikipedia, LED lamps have a lifespan and electrical efficiency that is several times better than incandescent lamps, and significantly better than most fluorescent lamps, with some chips able to emit more than 100 lumens per watt. The LED lamp market is projected to grow more than 12-fold over the next decade, from $2 billion (SR7.5 billion) today to $25 billion (SR93.75 billion) in 2023.