San Francisco Water, Power and Sewer is beginning a city-wide project late this year to replace 18,500 high-pressure sodium street light fixtures with LED fixtures.  The new fixtures will use 50 percent less energy than the existing street lights and will cost far less to maintain since they only have to be replaced every 15 - 20 years compared to the current bulbs that have to be replaced every four years.

The swapping out of the lighting fixtures is expected to take 30 minutes per street light with the whole project being completed in about 14 months.

The new lights have more benefits than just the energy and cost savings.  The lights will have smart controllers that let the city remotely monitor and adjust their light level and alert maintenance crews when the lights fail or are about to fail.

via San Francisco Water Power Sewer

The German government has decided to phase out all nuclear power in the country in the next 11 years. Although the country is ending nuclear power, other sustainable power goals remain in place. "We don’t only want to renounce nuclear energy by 2022, we also want to reduce our CO2 emissions by 40 percent and double our share of renewable energies, from about 17 percent today to then 35 percent," said Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germany currently has 17 nuclear power plants, which produce about one-quarter of the country's electricity, all of which will be closed down by 2022. Germany was already aiming to phase out nuclear power by 2034; the current announcement mostly advances the timetable. Germany already has a sizable percentage of its capacity from renewable sources, but those will need to greatly expand to offset the loss of the nuclear plants.

In addition to increasing its share of renewables, Germany also plans to invest in new natural gas plants to provide the capacity necessary to avoid shortfalls in power production. Increasing efficiency and reducing consumption are also key in the overall plan to meet German energy production needs for the next few decades.