Energy efficiency
Announcements prior to September 2017, including this announcement, occurred under previous ownership.
24 March 2016
Stirling Council is installing 12,000 LED lamps and 4,000 columns (lampposts)
The council will borrow £9.87m over four financial years using GIB’s Green Loan
The council is expected to save £31m over the next 30 years
Predicted equivalent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
Stirling Council is borrowing £9.87m from GIB and will install light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of traditional sodium lightbulbs in 12,000 streetlights over four financial years.
The council will also replace 4,000 of the columns (or lampposts), marking a major investment in infrastructure for the county. Stirling is expected to cut its streetlight power consumption by 63% and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 14,400 tonnes over the lifetime of the project. The energy saved each year would be equivalent to the total electricity consumed by over 850 homes.
GIB launched its Green Loan for local councils to help them reduce their streetlight electricity bills by up to 80%. The Green Loan offers UK local authorities a low, fixed-rate financial arrangement over a period of up to 30 years. It has been specifically designed to finance public sector energy efficiency projects where repayments are less than the savings realised.
The UK currently spends about £300m a year powering its seven million streetlights, with fewer than one million lamps so far using low-energy LEDs.
Stirling is following in the footsteps of local authorities in Glasgow and Southend-on-Sea, making it the second council in Scotland and the third in the UK to take out a GIB Green Loan to replace its inefficient and costly old street lamps with modern, energy efficient models.
GIB and its legal adviser Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP have standardised the Green Loan investment process to save the public sector time and money in agreeing a financing package for energy efficiency projects.
Fergus Ewing
Energy Minister
Andrew Dunlop
Scotland Office Minister
Edward Northam
Head of Investment Banking, GIB
Robert Steenson
Director of Housing and Environment, Stirling Council
The council modelled the cost-savings of the project using a streetlighting toolkit developed by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT), the company setup by the Scottish Government in 2008 to help ensure value-for-money in public sector spending.
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