Agenda item

To receive the report from the Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport and Corporate Director for Growth, Environment and Transport and to consider and endorse or make recommendations to the Cabinet Member

(1)       The Cabinet Committee received a report of the Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport and the Director of Highways, Transport and Waste which contained information on the conversion of the County Council’s stock of street lights to LED.  Behdad Haratbar, Head of Programmed Work, was in attendance to introduce the report and in particular referred to the following:

(2)       Kent County Council is one of the largest lighting authorities in the UK with around 118,000 street lights and some 25,000 lit signs and bollards.  The annual cost of illuminating these is around £5.8m, a cost that keeps rising.  The average increase for energy prices in 2014 had been around 11%.  

(3)       KCC’s Carbon Management Action Plan (2013) set a new carbon reduction target of at least 2.6% per annum up to 2015 across its estate (based on a 2010/11 baseline).  Nationally, the Climate Change Act (2008) had introduced a revised UK target of 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 (based on 1990 emissions levels).  Since April 2014 all street lighting is being captured by the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) which    was in effect a further tax.  This was currently £16 per tonne of carbon produced.  The carbon produced from generating the energy to illuminate KCC’s street lights, signs and bollards was around 24,000 tonnes which accounted for over half the carbon footprint across the entire KCC estate.

(4)       Progress was already being made to combat the rise energy costs and carbon tax; the County Council’s old, inefficient mercury lamps had been replaced generating a saving of £130,000 per year.  More recently sites identified as surplus had been switched off for a 12 month trial period, with around 1,200 lamps identified, generating a saving of £100,000.  Conversion of 60,000 street lights to part night switch off, where the lights switched off between midnight and 5:30 am, had generated a further £800,000 of annual saving.

(5)       The majority of KCC’s lighting stock had sodium lamps which were energy hungry.  LED lights provided much more directional lighting, would normally carry a 20 year manufacturer guarantee and could be controlled through a Central Management System (CMS) which would detect faults automatically including day burners.  The CMS would also mean that illumination level could be controlled remotely from HQ and protect the authority against future policy changes in illumination level.

(6)       The cost of converting the whole KCC estate to LED was approximately £40m and would take three to four years to complete.  The scheme would result in reduced energy consumption, carbon emission and maintenance.  The annual saving would be around £5.3m at current prices.  The scheme was now being developed in detail and conversion works could begin in late 2015 or early 2016, pending approval of funding. 

(7)       KCC had been exploring a number of funding options, through a mixture of grant funding, KCC investment and borrowing.  A number of EU funding streams had been examined; the front runner being South Eastern Local Enterprise Partnership’s (SELEP) Structural and Investment Fund, which had £16.5m for carbon reduction initiatives and a further £28.8m for innovation. These funds were grants and did not need to be repaid, but had to be match-funded by the County Council.  To this end, KCC had been holding discussions with Salix about raising a 0% loan capital to use as match funding. 

(8)       Salix is a Government organisation, funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which provides interest-free loans to the public sector for energy reduction projects.  Their governing principle for making loans available is based on the cost of reducing energy consumption; with the main emphasis on projects that pay for themselves from energy saving within five years. 

(9)       KCC had developed an excellent relationship with Salix and had secured a loan offer of £22m which would be drawn down, in stages, over the conversion period.  One benefit of Salix, over and above the 0% terms (negative interest when considering inflation), was that they had confirmed the loan repayments can be recycled within the County Council to fund new energy saving initiatives.  An example of this was converting KCC’s lit signs and bollards to LED, which would deliver an annual saving of £200k.  This was not confined to LED technology; KCC’s property and school estate could benefit in terms of energy efficient boilers, roofing/insulation and lighting.

(10)    RESOLVED that the Cabinet Committee endorsed action being taken for conversion of the County Council’s stock of street lights to LED.