FILE PHOTO/davaotoday.com
DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The council is now mulling over the conversion of current streetlights to “energy-efficient” lights, as one of the highlighted legislative requests of City Mayor Sara Duterte in her State of the City Address (SOCA).
Majority floor leader Bernard Al-ag on Tuesday, September 26, told reporters that in response to the mayor’s plea, he will be presenting to the council a proposal to replace the current sodium lights to light-emitting diode (LED lights).
LED lights offer “excellent visibility and color accuracy” thus, can provide ‘safer conditions for both motorists and pedestrians’, according to a Lighting Science Group’s post. LED lights are also said to consume 40 percent to 80 percent less electricity compared to standard high-pressure sodium lights.
The city is paying around P18 million per month or P200 million per year for electric consumption of streetlights alone, said Al-ag, also chair of the committee on rules privileges, laws and ordinances. By using LED lights, the city is looking to reduce it by 30 percent to 40 percent, he added.
The conversion of the 36,000 streetlights all over the city could cost about P700,000, an amount of which Al-ag said that the city government cannot fully fund.
“The city government wants the Davao Light and Power Company (DLPC) to shoulder the purchasing,” he said.
Duterte earlier mentioned that the city government have already asked DLPC to initially install LED lights in some areas of the city including downtown streets San Pedro, Bolton, Magallanes and the highway island outside the Davao airport.
If implemented, Davao City will add up to the list of cities including Cebu, Baguio, Pasig, Mandaluyong and Quezon, which currently uses LED streetlights.(davaotoday.com)
