In March 2014 the council announced that it would spend £43,000 to replace the floodlights with 18 new energy-efficient LED lights, which it expected would save £8000 per year in operating costs; they produce a softer, whiter light than their predecessors, and can be programmed to illuminate the monument in different colours. They were paid for with a government loan and were expected to reduce annual energy consumption from 75,000 kilowatt-hours to less than 10,000. An archaeological watching brief was carried out during the lights' installation. In April 2015 nine of the new lights, worth £20,000, were stolen; thieves used bolt cutters to breach the monument's security gates and open the lights' steel enclosures. The installation was fully complete by August 2015. The monument has since been illuminated in various colours to commemorate events, including the colours of the flag of France after the November 2015 Paris attacks; the colours of Hays Travel in November 2020 to commemorate John Hays; the colours of the Union Jack on 31 January 2020 to mark Brexit; and blue on 24 March 2020 as a tribute to National Health Service and social care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.