LEDs Light Up Turners Hill

Having started to spread the word about the availability of grants from Repower more widely around the communities surrounding Balcombe, our first application arrived in March 2023 from Turners Hill Parish Council.

As a Parish Council, we have been working on a project to upgrade all our street light lanterns to LEDs. Some of our lanterns were so old they had mercury bulbs in them! This project was too expensive to get done all in one tranche, so we planned to do the work over several years.
We approached REPOWER in 2023 to ask for advice and a grant, and received invaluable advice from Tom about the energy savings we could make. Tom really helped us to drill down into our current power usage and understand the benefits we’d receive from upgrading to LEDs (which is not just lower energy costs but also lower ongoing maintenance).
We were lucky enough to receive a grant for £5,000 which allowed us to bring forward the project and upgrade the lanterns on all of our side roads. Our electricity bill has already reduced considerably, and the entire project is not even complete yet!
We are now nearing the end of our project, and with thanks to REPOWER we have reached this point sooner and with less cost to our community. We are now a more sustainable village with a lower carbon footprint!

Mrs Leanne Bannister
Clerk to Turners Hill Parish Council

Their application included a spreadsheet containing details of hours used, light bulb wattage and energy costs for each of their 47 street lights. The estimated annual savings on electricity costs alone exceed £3,400, however there would be further savings with LED lights having a longer lifespan than, for example, halogen lights and hence requiring less maintenance over their lifetime.

Using the approved UK government conversion factor, the project saves just over 1,400 Kg of CO2 emissions annually.