The premier of Taiwan Jiang Yihua today (14th Nov) approved the “Mercury streetlight sunset plan”, it is expected to invest NT$ 5.49 billion yuan (about 178.44 million US dollars) in the next two years, aim to assist local governments on replacing 692,000 units mercury street lights by LED street lights in the end of 2016. After the completion of replacement, Taiwan will become the world’s first region which eliminates mercury lights comprehensively. It is expected to save up to 640 million Kwh annually, will reduce NT$ 1.1 billion yuan (about 35.75 million US dollars) electricity cost and NT$ 346 million yuan (about 11.24 million US dollars) maintenance costs, the local government expenditure can save up to NT$ 7.23 billion yuan (about 235 million US dollars) in five years.
The premier spokesman Sun Liqun said that in order to accelerate the development of LED optoelectronic industry and reduce carbon emissions, Taiwan promoted LED traffic light since 2008, and make Taiwan became the second area that fully using LED traffic lights; also develop LED street light standard (CNS15233) in the same year, and began to promote the LED street lamp demonstration project.
The premier stated that besides the promotion of LED street light by government funds, they will add mandatory regulations to prohibit the use of mercury lights at the same time, and finally achieve the goal of fully replaced the mercury lights. Taiwan LED street lamp performances were improved significantly, the average luminous efficiency is more than 100lm / W, which is about three times of mercury lights, while the life is up to six years, also three times of the mercury lamp, so it can fully replace the traditional mercury light.