Changing Strathmore’s street lights

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

Strathmore town council is considering converting the town’s street lights to LED lights.
Ruhin Sachedina with FortisAlberta attended the Strathmore town council meeting on Nov. 2 to discuss the scope and timeline of the proposal.
Before approaching Strathmore, FortisAlberta performed tests in five municipalities – Devon, St. Albert, Wetaskiwin, Canmore and Okotoks. They are currently testing in the Crowsnest Pass.
“We wanted to see how the technology was working,” said Sachedina. “We wanted to wait and allow more manufacturers to come into the market, which would decrease the price and increase the warranty. Over all we’ve been getting positive feedback.”
Sachedina said FortisAlberta has secured a contract with an LED manufacturer that is very reputable. The manufacturer offers a 10-year complete warranty with an additional 10 years of warranty in the event of any significant failures.
Under the proposed contract, FortisAlberta would replace all the cobra-head street lights in Strathmore, but this would not include private customer (yard) lights or municipal owned lights that are not metered.
“In Strathmore right now, we have just under 1,200 street lights that qualify for this conversion,” said Sachedina.
According to Sachedina, switching to LED lights will save the Town of Strathmore just under 500,000 kilowatt hours a year.
Sachedina said FortisAlberta received approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) on a specific way to get rid of the upfront costs of this project for Strathmore by utilizing a maintenance multiplier on the town’s utility bill.
Essentially, the multiplier works by adding an approximate 10 per cent charge to the town’s utility bill; however, the town would not pay this additional 10 per cent since the savings realized from the more efficient LED lights would result in a net effect of zero.
“The savings that you get from the LED (lights) will cover the costs for this maintenance multiplier,” said Sachedina, who was not able to provide a timeline of when the maintenance multiplier would end. “As soon as we get a better idea of when the multiplier will be removed.”
The proposal offers an approximate savings of $5 per fixture annually, or $6,000 total before the multiplier goes away. However, “once that multiplier goes away, you (Town of Strathmore) are going to reap the benefits of all the savings. You’re going to see a savings of approximately $30 per fixture,” said Sachedina.
This equates to $36,000 per year. Sachedina said FortisAlberta is trying to conserve energy.
“The biggest thing we’re looking at is the environmental impacts with the LEDs and how it’s going to impact Strathmore.”
If the proposed project goes forward, FortisAlberta will be using local installers and people within Alberta will be installing the lights and swapping them out as needed. The company will also maintain the lights at no cost.
“Moving forward, I really believe this is something we should seriously look at,” said town councillor Rocky Blokland. “The life expectancy on these things (LEDs) is probably much better; we’re dealing with a better light and it’s better for the environment.”
Coun. Blokland also noted the town’s yearly power bill is over $1 million.
At the meeting, Coun. Steve Grajczyk said he would like to see a rate of return on this project before proceeding with further discussions. Coun. Bob Sobol also said he would like to see more information on the proposal.
“I was going to recommend that we turn this over to administration and have it brought back Nov. 16,” said Sobol. “I would certainly like to have our director of finance have a look at the numbers and report back to us for a decision in this matter.”
Mayor Michael Ell presented a motion on the floor to postpone the matter until the Nov. 16 council meeting and the motion was carried.