Honolulu and the Canadian city of Calgary are among the major urban centers that will convert their lighting to LED technology.
While you may not always appreciate the bright white light, LED lights are here to stay. The LED is gaining acceptance in government and municipal use for its low energy consumption and affordable price.
Projects are in the works in major cities to replace incandescent streetlights with the new-style, cost-efficient LED lighting.
The U.S. Department of Energy said LED lighting could represent 36 percent of all lighting sold by 2020, and that figure will climb to 74 percent by 2030.
Honolulu is the latest city to announce its hopes to replace the lights - 51,000 of them - with the newer LED lighting technology, according to a report on KHON.
It's expected that the conversion will bring the city's lighting bill down from $6 million a year to $3 million, the report indicated.
The city hopes to start its conversion process in May, and it's expected to take four years to change all of the lights.
Meanwhile, north of the U.S. border, the city of Calgary is expecting to soon launch phase two of its light-switching project, CBC News reported.
Five communities in the region have already made the switch from its standard bulbs: Brentwood, Altadore, Marlborough, Douglasdale and Tuxedo Park.
Julie Yepishina-Geller, who is with the City of Calgary, told CBC News that the new lights are whiter, but they will save money.
"The nice thing about the LED lights is that they really direct the light downwards, on to the road and the sidewalk where we really want it to be lighting as opposed to up into the air."
About 2,500 lights have been installed since the city started making the switch last summer. There are 77,500 more lights yet to be replaced.
Yepishina-Geller said research has been done from neighborhood to neighborhood to see how the lighting will impact the city's appearance, and to evaluate additional retrofitting that's needed.
The City of Calgary said the use of LED fixtures could reduce the city's energy consumption by up to 55 percent. The city hopes to have the project complete by 2018.
Another adapter to the LED is Japan. Japan's LED lighting market is expected to grow 18 percent, and one reason cited is the global standardization process for LED.
