Demonstration of LED Street Lighting in Kansas City, MO

Nine different streetlighting products were installed on various streets in Kansas City, Missouri during February, 2011, to evaluate their performance relative to the incumbent high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting. The applications investigated included 100 W, 150 W, 250 W, and 400 W HPS installations. Initial measurements and comparisons included power, illuminance, and luminance; sample illuminance readings have continued at each of the nine locations at roughly 1,000-hour operating intervals since then. All of the LED products consumed less power than their HPS counterparts—with a mean difference of 39% and a range of 31% to 51%—but they also emitted 31% fewer lumens, on average. The net result is just a 15% increase in mean efficacy. Applying the city’s stringent light loss factors to the initial measured data meant that five of the LED products (and two of the HPS luminaires) were predicted to eventually fail to meet the specified mean illuminance over their lifetimes; however, the specified light loss levels are not expected to be reached by the LED products until some distant future date (between 12 and 30 years after installation according to manufacturer specification sheet estimates). The practical value of designing streetlighting systems to meet illumination requirements more than 15 years in the future is questioned. Numerous sources of variation in field measurements are noted throughout the report, particularly seasonal influences such as ambient temperature and foliage that are evident in the time-series illuminance data