City looks to light own path
Albany may buy its streetlights, convert them to LED technology
In a move that’s becoming ever more popular among municipalities to tap into energy savings, Albany is looking to buy its streetlights to the tune of $9.4 million.
National Grid currently owns the lights illuminating the streets of Albany, but a draft purchase agreement presented to the Common Council offers $9,450,674 to the utility company for the 10,313 lights throughout the city.
In turn, Albany would save money by upgrading to energyefficient LED lighting, which would open the door to citywide wireless internet through use of the new infrastructure as a spot for Wi-fi. The cost of street lighting in Albany is roughly $4.3 million annually and switching from traditional light bulbs would decrease energy consumption.
LEDS — light-emitting diodes — have a 25-year life and are rated for 100,000 hours, so there’s little maintenance once converted, said
Jesse Scott, manager of customer business development at the New York Power Authority.
The power authority is overseeing the Smart Street Lighting program, which was born following the state Public Service Commission’s approval of legislation in 2016 that provides a timeline and guidance for municipalities looking to purchase their streetlights from electric companies.
Scott said NYPA is working with Albany through the street lighting program, which provides guidance and low-rate financing to municipalities upgrading to LED lights.
Albany would be purchasing the streetlights and arms, as well as metal light poles. However the city would not purchase any wooden light poles because they are leased by many different utilities. It’s expected the city will reveal how it would fund the purchase in the 2019 proposed budget, which is due in October.
The draft agreement also would require $270,049 for transition and transaction costs, and $3.3 million into an escrow account to ensure that Albany installs fuses that guarantee separate ownership for the municipality. The escrow is refundable as long as the city installs the equipment within two years.
Switching the city’s streetlights to LEDS has been talked about for at least three years. It was brought up by the state Financial Restructuring Board in 2015 as a way for the capital city to cut costs and yield savings, and more recently a state-funded PFM Group report touted the effort as an opportunity for the city to save as much as $2.75 million annually.
“We examined a number of options and this makes the most sense for the goals we have and the interests of our residents,” said Brian Shea, Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s chief of staff.
Syracuse officials last month approved borrowing $38 million to purchase 17,507 streetlights from National Grid to convert them to LEDS, according to the Syracuse Post-standard.
In Schenectady, the city has partnered with National Grid in a pilot program to turn the Electric City into a “smart city.” The three-year, $6.7 million project will be paid for through the utility and will convert more than 4,000 streetlights across the city to LEDS, while also installing a variety of wireless data network nodes and sensors that will allow Schenectady to collect and use data from city streets.
State regulators have been pushing utilities like National Grid to expand their portfolio of services for the public beyond just electricity and natural gas service using its available infrastructure. The Schenectady project is a pilot program for what the state is calling Reforming the Energy Vision. The utility expects that it will be able to earn revenue from these services in the future.
NYPA’S Scott said
Schenectady’s project is a demonstration that isn’t open to other municipalities. The pilot program allows the authority to identify use cases for different technologies in partnership with utilities and the utility continues to own the infrastructure, he said. When municipalities own the lights outright, the community determines the uses and technologies going forward, Scott said.
The state aims to convert 500,000 lights to LEDS by 2025, which include endeavors by utilities, NYPA and consumers, Scott said.
Whether municipalities partner with utilities, or pursue purchasing the lights outright, depends on a variety of factors such as the size of the community and the age of the infrastructure, among others, Scott said.
“There are a lot of factors that determine which is the better, more appropriate model for municipalities,” he said.