Street smarts

Street smarts is an energy efficiency commercial and public lighting project anchored by a local government consortium in the Greater Adelaide region, South Australia, with an administrative scope that also spans across the Northern Territory, Queensland, and Western Australia. It was registered in December 2017. Because this project consists of modifying and replacing existing public streetlights, it does not occupy a conventional geographical land area.

Commercial and public lighting projects operate under the Energy Efficiency method. They involve upgrading inefficient existing lighting systems, such as streetlights and public space illumination, to modern, high-efficiency alternatives like LED luminaires. The standard requirements for this methodology involve calculating the greenhouse gas emissions avoided based on the net energy savings drawn from the electricity grid over the project's active crediting period.

The Greater Adelaide area where this primary infrastructure upgrade took place is predominantly suburban and urban land use. Environmentally, the region experiences a Mediterranean climate with moderate to low semi-arid rainfall, and the underlying soil profile is typically characterised by red-brown earths and stiff clays.

This project is notable for facilitating a pioneering local government consortium between the Marion, Mitcham, and Charles Sturt Councils in Adelaide. It was the first local government consortium in Australia to benefit directly from the creation and sale of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) generated from LED street lighting. In the City of Marion alone, the initiative planned to replace 8,525 street lights with LEDs, aiming to cut council energy use by 75%, save ratepayers approximately $10 million over 20 years, and sell up to $11,000 worth of carbon credits annually. Additionally, in May 2020, the project proponent changed its name from Australian Integrated Carbon Financial Services Pty Ltd to Emissions Reduction Group Pty Ltd.