Philips teams up with mayors to power city LEDs

Washington, D.C. is following in the footsteps of a bunch of cities that have — or are in the process of — switching their lighting to LEDs. But unlike the other cities, Washington isn't paying the high costs of making the switch — it is taking advantage of Philips Lighting's (which manufactures the LEDs) first foray into offering a "lighting as a service" model. While the model is commonly used to finance building retrofits, it hasn't been used for lighting. Philips will pay the upfront costs of installation and be compensated through a performance contract — the energy savings the retrofit produces.