The end is within sight for Fairfax County’s nearly decade-long push to convert all streetlights to more energy efficient LED fixtures.
Dominion Energy, which owns, operates and maintains about 96% of the county’s 60,000 streetlights, has upgraded approximately 93% or 52,100 of them to LED, as of March, the county announced earlier this week.
The utility has another 2,400 replacements in its queue for construction.
“These upgrades help make our infrastructure more cost-effective, climate-friendly and resilient while maintaining safe and reliable lighting for residents, businesses and visitors,” the county said in a press release.
The county announced in August 2018 that it had worked with other local governments and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission to secure an agreement with Dominion Energy to facilitate a transition to LED streetlights. Among other conditions, the deal established lower conversion and operation costs and expanded the lighting and style options available.
According to the county, LED streetlights use 40 to 60% less electricity and last up to three or four times longer than “conventional” streetlights powered by mercury vapor, high-pressure sodium and metal halide.
Since the LED Conversion Streetlight Program officially launched in 2019, the county has seen the energy used by its streetlights drop from around 40 million kilowatt-hours annually in 2016 through 2019 to 17.5 million in 2025 — an approximately 56% decline.
The county’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) has estimated that the LED conversions, once complete, will save the county approximately $1.4 million every year in energy costs and reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 32.4 million pounds.
After hearing an update on the program in 2023, Fairfax County supervisors had lamented that Northern Virginia Electrical Cooperative (NOVEC), which manages the remaining 4% of the county’s streetlight inventory, wasn’t making the same progress as Dominion.
That disparity doesn’t appear to have changed. NOVEC has converted 378 or 16% of its approximately 2,300 lights to LED so far, leaving 1,922 still to be replaced, according to DPWES.
Without an agreement in place to accelerate the transition like the one Dominion has with Fairfax County, NOVEC is replacing its streetlights to LED “through traditional maintenance work” and its “standard operational process,” DPWES told FFXnow.
The county also has a program that allows residents to petition for streetlight upgrades, which can include LED conversions as well as resizing or upgrading fixtures to meet current lighting standards.
The push to transition to LED lights is one component of an Operational Energy Strategy adopted in 2018 and updated in 2021 to support the county’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality — the point when it removes as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it emits — by 2050.
Among other targets, the strategy called for a 25% reduction in the use of electricity and natural gas for county facilities and operations by 2030 and 50% by 2040 compared to fiscal year 2018.
Per the county’s energy data dashboard, its annual energy use has declined since 2018, but there was an uptick in 2025 that appears to stem from an increase in the use of natural gas. County facilities generated 217 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in fiscal year 2025, down from over 260 million in FY 2018.
County staff reported similar trends at the end of last year for overall greenhouse gas emissions, which are down compared to 2005 but have risen since 2020 as travel has rebounded from the pandemic.
