City of Baytown

The City of Baytown has led the way for the state of Texas with LED highway lighting that reduces energy use, lowers maintenance and curbs city expenditures for roughly 70,000 taxpayers. While a few Texas cities are installing LED streetlights on city streets, the new street lights in Baytown are the first installed on state highways. The upgrade from high pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures to Cree LEDway^® LED street lights has also dramatically improved the quality of roadway lighting and visibility for motorists.

Baytown is situated approximately 26 miles east of Houston and is a coastal gateway to the greater metropolitan area. Nearly 350 LEDway street lights manufactured by Cree are installed on previously existing double-arm 54-foot light poles spaced at 270-foot distances along the major four-lane state highways that intersect the city corridor including Interstate 10, a portion of Highway 146 and the 330 spur.

The upgrade followed a ground-breaking test program in 2010.

Six 400-watt HPS fixtures on three light poles along Highway 146 at the Garth Road overpass were replaced with six Cree LED luminaires and observed by city management and the Houston transportation operations division of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). For three months prior to installation of the LED test fixtures, the city monitored existing HPS lights for energy consumption and lighting levels. The Cree luminaires were monitored for a similar period of time but less than a month into the program officials from Baytown were pleased to report to TxDOT that visible and measurable benefits could be obtained by replacing the remainder of the city’s highway fixtures — a solution that could be replicated on highway lighting throughout the state

The entire process — from research and testing to approval and complete installation — spanned 2.5 years.