GEORGE TOWN, July 16 — The Penang state government will save about RM7 million in annual electricity costs for street lights statewide once these all use light-emitting diodes (LED), said state exco Jagdeep Singh Deo.
The local government and housing development committee chairman said this represented a savings of around 60 per cent for the state’s two local councils.
“The Penang Island City Council (MBPP) paid RM6 million for the electricity bill for street lights while Seberang Perai Municipal Council (MPSP) paid RM7 million last year,” he said.
Jagdeep said it was also the Pakatan Harapan state government’s election promise to instal 20,000 LED street lights in the state.
“MBPP has 16,636 street lights on the island and 7,135 street lights were already replaced with LED lights while 9,501 more will be replaced by May 2019,” he said in a press conference today.
As for MPSP, he said the local council started replacing its 12,376 street lights with LED lights this year and is expected to complete this by 2020.
He said there are also many street lights under Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) that the utility previously refused to switch to LEDs in collaboration with the state government.
“We had another discussion with TNB recently, and now, they are ready to work with the state government so TNB will replace 3,450 street lights this year, 8,280 next year and 4,832 by 2020 on the island,” he said.
He said this brings the total number of street lights on the island to be fitted with LEDs to 33,198 by 2020.
“This is more than the 20,000 LED street lights we pledged and this is only for the island,” he said.
He said this meant a total 57,655 street lights on the mainland will eventually be changed to LED lights.
“We will not only stop here, I have also ordered that all new projects must use only LED street lights,” he said.
He hoped Penang will be the first state in the country to have 100 per cent LED street lights.
