Jim Marshall, electricity and utilities engineering manager for Hamilton, said the city is planning to replace around 900 lights per year to finish the project by 2025.
The new lights will help increase safety and decrease the city’s electric bill, Marshall said.
“The LED lights are not really brighter but that’s the perception,” Marshall said. “It’s just a higher quality light. The purpose of the lights is not really for security. It’s for the avoiding of vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-pedestrian conflict.
“In those areas with the LED lights, you’re getting a better quality light and we’re hoping that will improve safety in those places.”
Safety is one of the reasons Nora Mollmann, owner of Lambikin’s Hideaway Yarn and Stitchery on South B Street, welcomes the new lights.
Her business is located in an area where LED light installation recently occurred. She said there has been one instance in her five years owning the business where someone tried to break in.
“It would help illuminate my business to make it more noticeable if somebody was prowling around,” she said.
Mollmann said she is also thankful that visibility while driving on the city’s streets will improve.
While he did not have an exact number on how much the city will save once the installation is complete, Marshall estimates Hamilton’s streetlight energy consumption will decrease by 30 to 50 percent. According to a Forbes report, streetlights account for nearly 40 percent of an average city’s electric costs.
A longer lifespan will also help save money. The newer LED lights last for around 20 years, nearly a third longer than the traditional lights.
“That also saves us in our routine maintenance,” Marshall said. “You’re not out replacing bulbs as often as in the standard fixtures.”
To help meet the 2025 deadline, the city is taking a two-phase approach to replacing the lights. City crews will replace lights that require immediate maintenance. An outside contractor will work on replacing lights not needing maintenance. Residents can expect lane closures periodically through the city as the project continues.
The city maintains its own streetlights, but in other areas of Butler County, Duke Energy maintains most streetlights on public roads through agreements with the county and townships.
Sally Thelen, a Duke Energy spokesperson, said the company does not currently have plans to replace existing streets lights in Butler County to LED lights. Duke Energy customers can request an LED streetlight replacement on private property.
“Things could change in the future on how the company wants to handle replacing older devices with LEDs, but at this time those changes are only performed at the request of the customer and not at the discretion of the company,” Thelen said.
Aside from the decreased energy consumption, Marshall said there were other reasons that played into the decision to switch.
The quality of the LED, measured in lumens, is higher with LED bulbs. LED lights also carry a higher Color Rendering Index (CRI) value than traditional lights.
“We’ve been using high pressure sodium lights that has kind of an orange glow to it, they have a CRI of 22,” Marshall said. “The LEDs have a CRI of approximately 70, with some lights being 100. You get a much truer color with the LEDs.”
Across the county, other cities have started or completed programs to replace their streetlights with LED lights. In a four-year period, Los Angeles has replaced over 140,000 streetlights with LEDs, reducing energy consumption by 63.1 percent, according to the city.
In a report issued June 14, Los Angeles estimated energy savings from the conversion to be around $9 million annually.
About the Author