Waterford to switch to LED street lighting for big savings

Waterford — The town will convert to LED street lighting in a $1 million move that officials say will save about $4.7 million in energy and maintenance costs over 20 years.

The Representative Town Meeting this week unanimously backed the switch, which will see the town spend about $389,000 to acquire more than 2,001 streetlight fixtures currently owned by Eversource. California-based Tanko Lighting will conduct a streetlight audit, reconciling any discrepancies with Eversource utility bills and designing a street-by-street LED retrofit. Tanko then will install LED lights that cost about $8 less per fixture than standard Eversource lighting — leading to almost $17,000 in monthly energy bill savings.

The town will pay Tanko roughly $659,000 for its services, which include maintenance service with local contractors.

Morgan Melendrez, an energy advisor for Tanko, said the town would see a return on investment in less than four and a half years. Responding to questions from RTM members, Melendrez said the customized designs would prevent over- and under-lighting, depending on the setting.

“We take into consideration the length of the (pole) arm, the height of the pole, how many lanes in the streets, if it’s a residential area, is it set back from the street, the angle into the street,” he said. “All this really helps to make sure that light is getting onto the right of way and not into anyone’s houses. We do all that work beforehand, before we have to go out there for complaints from residents.”

When asked by RTM member Mike Perkins about types of LED lighting that interrupt sleep patterns, Melendrez noted early LED installations used lights with a color temperature between 4,000 and 5,000 kelvins, a “very blue light that actually impacts melatonin levels and has impacts to sleeping patterns. The light we’re using in municipalities is 3,000 kelvins, a warmer-color light that will produce less complaints overall and it’s the same amount of light.”

Melendrez said Tanko has converted 400,000 streetlights nationwide. In southeastern Connecticut the company has completed projects in East Lyme, Groton, Jewett City, Montville and New London.

Public Works Director Brian Long noted that buying the light fixtures from Eversource and installing LED would save the town money versus letting Eversource keep the infrastructure, install LED and charge the town a higher monthly rate for electricity and maintenance.

Long and Melendrez said the light fixtures acquisition would be completed by February and in the meantime, Tanko would conduct its audit, which could determine whether town is being charged for lights that either don’t exist or aren’t the correct wattages.

First Selectman Dan Steward said Thursday that town officials rejected a similar proposal two years ago, largely based on a lack of understanding on the potential savings.

“It’s a good project,” he said. “Once we laid all the information out there, got the contractor to come in and make clear that ‘Here’s how this works,’ people realized it’s significant savings.”