From 2014 to 2016, the Outdoor Lighting Accelerator (OLA) garnered a commitment to upgrade 1.3 million street lights that once achieved will save partners an estimated $48 million/year. Working with 25 partners that included 3 states, 16 cities, and 6 regional energy networks. Find best practices and replicable solutions in the Outdoor Lighting Toolkit.

Outdoor lighting consumes a significant amount of energy—about 1.3 quadrillion British thermal units annually—costing about $10 billion per year.

In the last five years, a number of municipalities have switched to new LED technologies that can reduce energy costs by approximately 50% over conventional lighting technologies and provide additional savings of 20 to 40% with advance lighting controls.

Beyond cost and energy savings, the higher efficiency of LED lights provides other benefits, including reduced carbon emissions, helping cities reach carbon reduction goals, reduced light pollution from less light being directed into the night sky due to optical control, and greater perceived public safety because of improved visibility through better color rendering and more uniform lighting distribution.

The U.S. Department of Energy has developed tools and resources to assist public and private organizations through the following efforts: