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Can taking T.O. closer to becoming the greenest city in North America be as easy as flipping a light switch? Yup at Exhibition Place, at least. There, Canada’s largest installation of light-emitting diode (LED) street lamps is shedding light on just how much energy we’ve been wasting flooding out streets with incandescent lamps. LEDs use 50 per cent less electricity, reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and last 20 times longer than conventional street fixtures, whose propensity to burn out has helped put us on the road to ruin. Converting our 160,000 street lights to LEDs would save $6 million in electricity costs and reduce greenhouse gases by 18,000 tonnes, the equivalent of removing 3,608 cars from the street. More pilots for the low-heat lights are planned for several business improvement areas. A bright idea the city should be getting on in a flash.
