LED lighting would make The Villages much more efficient

To the Editor:

Many households and most commercial customers including municipalities, recognize the savings that can be accomplished by retrofitting or installing new equipment. Changes include the use of high efficiency motors and on demand defrost control systems, but the most common change is that of replacing inefficient lighting with LED. This is especially true for parking lot and dusk to dawn street lighting which are on an average of 13 hours per day. These old metal halide fixtures are 465 watts to over 1000 watts and can easily be replaced by 70 to 250 watt LED fixtures or retrofit kits. Cost savings per fixture at 10 cents per kwh is over $200 per year if switched to LED.  Residential customers pay about 13 cents per kwh.
Throughout The Villages and even in the newer villages, all lighting is inefficient Metal Halide.  If we switched to LED, it would cost about $400 per fixture so payback period is two years. So, for every investment of $400 we get a 50 percent return each year. I am hard pressed to think of a better investment. It is very possible that The Villages has some arrangement with the power company or with the county, whereby we do not pay for the cost of street lighting from our HOA, but, the cost is real, regardless of who is paying. I would, however, think it is The Villages, because we are a closed community and likely responsible for our own lighting.

Gene Guerriero
Village of Mallory