LED lights cut city's power bills by half

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City government has cut almost half of the power consumption of its traffic signal system for using Light Emitting Diode (LED).

This was revealed yesterday by City Hall’s information officer Florito “Carlo” Dugaduga.

Rafael Christopher Yap, executive officer of the City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM), said the city started installing LED traffic signal system in February and completed last July.

Dugaduga said the city decided to stop using bulbs as traffic signal lights because it is so expensive to maintain aside from it consume more electricity compared to the LED.

Yap told Councilor Ritchie Osmeña, chairman of the City Council’s committee on traffic management, that the city’s monthly electric consumption for its traffic lighting systems had dropped from P332,774 in January 2011 to only P126,362 in August.

The records show that one month after the CITOM engineering personnel installed the LED traffic lighting system the city’s monthly power consumption had dropped to P298,877 and continues to go down.

“Anam-anam man nga gipang-ilisan ang mga traffic lighting system mao nga samtang nahurot-hurot na og ilis ang mga bulb-type nga traffic lights mikunhod na g’yud og maayo ang expenses nato sa kuryente,” Dugaduga explained.

Yap reported that there are 75 intersections in different parts of the city that have been installed with traffic lights.

Before the installation of the LED traffic lighting system, each of the four traffic lights at the corners of M.J. Cuenco and Juan Luna Avenue in Mabolo; Sergio Osmeña Avenue and V. Sotto Street; Osmeña Boulevard and Colon Street; and Osmeña Boulevard and P. del Rosario Street, consume more than P10,000 every month.

Yap said the electricity consumption of each traffic light had gone down to an average of P2,200 to P4,100. — (FREEMAN)