Town considers switch to LED streetlights
The Town Board is reviewing the steps needed to convert streetlights from sodium vapor to LED fixtures in an effort to save 65 percent on electric bills that currently run about $6,300 per month.
The board on Wednesday heard from two organizations that propose working with Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. to update more than 100 streetlights in the town.
Pat Courtney Strong, of the MidHudson Streetlight Consortium, said her group has been working with 48 municipalities to help guide officials through either the purchase of LED streetlights or facilitating funding that can help pay for the new fixtures.
“We actually give step-by-step advice on how you would contact Central Hudson, what you would say, and what the back and forth would be over time,” Strong said.
“We think that the end game is we’re going to work toward an ... aggregated purchase of LED streetlights as a group of communities,” she said. “This is commonly done in other states, and you can imagine what the volume price opportunity is for you to get in on a bigger order than you could arrange for yourselves.”
Strong said financing is based on savings over time and can include either bonding for new fixtures or developing an energy performance contract that has immediate savings through a private developer.
“Utilities budget about $4 per light in maintenance costs for an existing high-pressure sodium,” she said. “That’s what it works out to per month . ... What LEDs are costing so far, as the data comes in, is 50 cents a month. That’s why everybody’s excited about them.”
Esopus officials also heard a presentation by Energy Conservation Specialists, which has proposed to update streetlights in the town and provided an estimate of costs savings for various types of fixtures.
“[Central Hudson] charges you a flat rate,” spokesman Andy Neal said. “The only way you can [estimate savings] is by how many poles you have, how much you pay for rent on each one, and what it should be because there’s a big disparity between what they charge you for rent on a pole what that thing uses [in electricity] in a day.”