No. HID's are still better.

You need to edit your comments not post new comments that is very distracting.

Yes Vincent is right, so please don't do that...

Also yes I wonder what the future of streetlighting is gonna be, I actually liked the Ictron ones, but I wonder would they come in different color? temperatures?

I don't really see LEDs fit for any streetlighting.

Maybe in the future our currrent modern streetlights will have a large panel of very efficient LEDs instead of a reflector and a lamp. The lens would be the same.

thats good vince.

No!!!  NO L.E.D. STREETLIGHTING! They're fine for traffic signals, but I don't want to see HIDs go away.  Even though I am not a huge fan of HPS, I'd rather that that L.E.D.s because L.E.D.s are BORING!

I totally agree with you Brian,I Rather see HIDS for streetlighting than LEDS.

led's simply have to many disadvantages to overcome the advantages.

besides i love to watch h.i.d lamps warm up.

Yep, me too,I can still remember being interested in watching the streetlights come on when I was as young as 5.

I said MAYBE and never said that I like LED for streetlighting.  Even HPS is better 

Darren I also liked to see them warm up as a kid, and I remember that the streetlight near my home was turning to mercury colors when warming up.

leds are also far more expensive than standard HID lamps.

and i like the warm up.

I have seen some LED street lights being tested by the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting (BSL). Awful in my opinion! They scattered badly in the slightly misty air (this neighborhood is near a chemical plant that emits water vapor), light distribution is as bad as a small cobrahead FCO, and at least one model looked like dimmed mercs. The others were as bright as 100w HPS FCOs, but wait till they start dimming out! Not to mention the weird color rendering and such ugly luminaires like I have never seen before!

Long live the good ol' merc!

I read somewhere that the city of Pittsburgh wants to changeout all 40,000 of their streetlights to LEDs. I guess some cities don't care about visibility or safety, they only look at the numbers.

I have listed the power consumption, luminous outputs and luminous efficacies of various sizes of the WRTL Stela LED lantern below:

10 LED - 16w - 950 lumens (59.4 lm/w)
14 LED - 21w - 1330 lumens (63.3 lm/w)
18 LED - 26w - 1710 lumens (65.8 lm/w)
36 LED - 52w - 3420 lumens (65.8 lm/w)
52 LED - 70w - 4940 lumens (70.6 lm/w)

Those efficacies compare with 36-49.6 lm/w for 50-125w colour corrected mercury vapour, 80.5-81.8 lm/w for 36-55w CFL, 88-94.3 lm/w for 50-70w HPS (Philips SON-T PiaPlus), and 130-141.8 lm/w for 35-55w LPS. Hence, the WRTL Stela LED lantern is only more efficient when replacing mercury or tungsten lanterns, and is significantly less efficient than all other lamps used for street lighting.

Authorities who install LEDs are just doing it to show off. LED technology is perceived as being 'green' and good for the environment, when in fact it's crap, and it still needs to develop significantly to be comparable with other lamp types. The figures I found tie in with what I have noticed with my local LED installation. My local LED installation is the same wattage as some of my local ceramic metal halide streetlighting, but it produces less than one third of the light and is very noticeably the dimmest street lighting in the city.

LED's do have lower efficacy (~50..60lm/W compare to 80..90lm/W of MH/CFL or 100..150lm/W SON or 100..200lm/W SOX), but efficiency of their optics (so how much percentage of generated light really hit the desired area) is way much better (80..90% of LED luminaire vs 60..70% of clear high pressure lamp vs 40..50 of CFL/LPS/coated lamps), so total usefull efficacy of LED's is 45..55lm/W, compare to 50..60lm/W of MH, 50..90lm/W of SON and LPS or 40..50lm/W CFL, 25..40lm/W MV.
In this comparison LEDS are already far not the worst one.
And LEDs have other advantage: Their very low maintanance cost, given by their very long lifetime, what saves two-fold (assuming well designed LED luminaire): First the relamping is generally not needed and second, because no relamping is expected, the luminaire might have the optics designed as molded solid plastic just on the LED chip, so without any empty spaces, where the dust might collect, so even no cleaning is necessary.

And in the future (when associated infrastructure will be build - like occupancy sensors,...) their insensitivity to frequent switching and easiness of dimming might give further energy and waste-light savings, as lamps might be operated only where and up to the power actually needed on given place, this being very effective in quiet residential areas, as there will be nobody needing light during late night...

Even with a well designed lantern, I question the extent to which such a significant lack of luminosity can be offset. If 45w ceramic metal halide (CosmoPolis) can produce 4300 lumens whilst 45w LED can only produce 2000 lumens, can a well designed LED lantern really offset the LEDs giving out less than half the light output?

The 45w LED installation near me seems to have a slight reliability problem, with two of the lanterns in the street flickering. They hadn't been installed for long, and I can't see them lasting 5 years let alone 20 years, even if the pathetic light output is considered satisfactory.