In the picture below, you will notice the warm glow that shows in the sky deep into the night. This happens in every city. Scientists call this phenomenon – sky glow!

Recently, several efforts have been made in a number of U.S. cities to reduce energy consumption by converting street light bulbs to light emitting diodes (LEDs). In San Francisco, utilities and companies have been working with city governments to implement smart controller technologies. In March, the first 50 LED street lights were installed in the city. Helping make the city smart lights a reality are the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), Pacific Gas and Electric, BetaLED and the Echelon Corporation.

Streetlamps are the focus of Palo Alto's latest bid to lighten its load on the environment. The city announced Wednesday it will replace some traditional lights with low-maintenance induction lamps and light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, as part of a pilot project expected to last at least one year. Nine LEDs and five induction lights will be installed near City Hall and on the residential Colorado and Amarillo avenues. Both are designed to last longer and use 40 percent less energy that traditional sodium vapor lamps, according to the city.

Opto Tech Corp., a Taiwan-based LED manufacturer, has recently won the order to supply over 30,000 LED (light emitting diode) streetlights for the LED streetlight project in Guangzhou, China. As part of its energy-saving program, China is to install over 1.4 million streetlights nationwide by the end of 2009, which will cost an estimated RMB 20 billion. (US$2.9 billion at US$1:RMB6.7).

In Pennsylvania, the U.S., Perkasie and Quakertown are the latest municipalities to apply for federal stimulus grants to save energy and money on streetlights. The two boroughs collaborate to apply for a $1.5 million grant from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority to replace the bulbs in their streetlights with energy-efficient LEDs - light-emitting diodes. Perkasie plans to replace all 880 of its streetlights, and the state grant would cover 75 percent of the $969,675 price tag, said Manager Dan Olpere.

Welland, Canada has recently approved the resolutions to require developers to use LED fixtures in new streetlight installations, and is looking at the replacement of existing fixtures with LEDs. Located in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada, Welland became an LED City in September 2008, and is leading the way in new initiatives.

An "adaptive lighting" concept is now being tested in San Jose, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley. In this test, streets can be made brighter, darker or even be illuminated with flashing strobes upon command.

The first solid-state street lighting solution in Portugal is to be implemented along the Fidalgo Aprendiz in Pombal City. LUXEON Rebel LEDs from Philips Lumileds, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, are used in the new streetlight developed by BlueSpan, a provider LED lighting solutions. The streetlight's technical design was the result of a cooperative development effort between Philips Lumileds and optics expert Fraen.

Aeon Lighting Technology has launched a brand new street light, the Lodestar Street Light S02. The benefit of this street light is that it’s developed with a light weight design. It can work almost anywhere in the world, suitable with -40°C to 40°C ambient temperature. The most important is that it’s built with our most advanced LED street lighting technology for excellent stability and high performance. It has surpassed all of our previous street lights in that it provides better performance and lighting.

Taiwan`s biggest LED packager Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. and Genesis Photonics Inc., one of the nation’s major LED makers, are venturing into China’s LED streetlight market which is estimated to have a annual demand of over 1 million units.

It’s reported that Vienna, the capital of Austria installed LED streetlights from LEDworx. LEDworx®, 2 LED-Streetlights Hawk Eye [3.0] were installed at Kühnplatz in 1040 Vienna. The spirit of innovation and the commitment to energy efficiency and LED-Technology of all parties concerned enabled this first test installation. Further installations will follow in 2009.

It’s reported that Ruud Lighting’s new LED streetlights on 92nd St. near Highway 20 in Sturtevant can be powered down to save energy during the overnight hours. Now their wireless lighting-control system flickered to life. A split second after a technician inside Ruud Lighting's warehouse typed a command into his laptop, streetlights along 92nd St. outside blinked off, then back on.

Neo Neon supplies their market leading LED Streetlights to Swedish municipalities through their Swedish agent RBIecolight. In 2007, Neo Neon’s LED Streetlights in Sweden were firstly installed in Kjellbergsgatan, Jönköping Municipality, and have now been in use for two years. The reaction of the public and the Municipality has been very positive. Because of many successful projects completed by RBIecolight, Neo-Neon now has many projects which they are evaluating with clients in a number of different countries.

It’s reported that OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’s Golden DRAGON LEDs are lighting up a major thoroughfare of Jing Jiang City in the Jiangsu province of China. The 180W prototype LED streetlights were installed by Jiangsu Hua Jing Photoelectronics for replacing traditional 250W HID lamps.

After landing big orders for LED lightings and winning bids for supplying solar cell panels, Delta Electronics Inc. projected its annual revenue to grow 5% from 2008 to hit NT$150 billion in 2009, despite the lingering global economic downturn.  

LEDinside, Taiwan LED industry research institute, estimates Taiwan’s streetlight market to show perspective business valued at around NT$40-50 billion for the Taiwan’s LED firms due to the government’s plan to spend NT$200-300 million to install LED streetlights on some of the island’s roads in 2009 as demonstration for the use of the new light source in streetlight.

Taiwan LED lighting makers estimate LED market to take off in 2009 in spite of the ongoing financial crisis. In Taiwan, several significant LED lighting projects have launched by governments. The Taichung City government installed 5,000 streetlights by the end of October, the largest number of all. The Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced it will budget NT$150 million (US$4.5 million at US$1:NT$33) in 2009 to finance local governments on the island to erect a total number of 12,500 LED streetlights islandwide.

It’s reported that the Belleville Downtown Development Authority (DDA)  is planning to install LED streetlights in the next few years to make the lights in the city's downtown shine brighter, longer and cheaper.

It’s reported that Officials with Raleigh and Progress Energy are testing nine energy-efficient streetlights downtown to determine how well they withstand extreme heat, cold and rain. The last of the nine experimental lamps was installed Tuesday in front of Progress' downtown office tower on Davie Street. If the lights live up to their promise, they could take a significant bite out of Raleigh's $5.3 million annual streetlight bill.

It’s reported that Progress Energy and the city of Raleigh would complete the installation of LED streetlights downtown as part of a test of the lighting technology.

It’s reported that Neo-Neo Group will be the first Taiwan-based LED-lighting maker to be fully integrated-running manufacturing facilities to handle, from top to bottom, the entire production process in the LED industry, with moving to produce epitaxy wafers in September this year.