Southwest Energy Efficiency Project

City of Denver LED Traffic Lighting Retrofit

Traffic Light Retrofit The City and County of Denver began to retrofit pedestrian and traffic signals in 1996. This effort involved replacing incandescent lights with high efficiency light-emitting diode (LED) lights. The LED signals have a lifetime of 100,000 hours and consume 14 watts of electricity or less. Also, they are brighter than typical incandescent traffic lights.

The retrofit of red traffic lights and orange pedestrian “Don’t Walk” signals resulted in annual labor and material cost savings of $360,000. Energy savings from replacing the red traffic lights alone amounted to $250,000 annually. Denver netted even more savings with $500,000 in rebates from the local utility.

The City will receive another $96,800 in rebates from Xcel Energy in 2002 as it completes the replacement of more than 13,000 green traffic signals. Yellow LED signal specifications are being finalized and retrofits will begin in 2002 as well.

© 2002-2008 Southwest Energy Efficiency Project
2260 Baseline Rd. Suite 212, Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 447-0078 fax: (303) 786-8054 info@swenergy.org

Last Updated: 01/28/2008