A long-awaited plan by the City of Guelph to retrofit its 13,000 streetlights with energy-efficient LED lights goes into effect this month.
The plan to retrofit the existing streetlights was approved in 2017 by the previous city council.
“There is a lot that went into the project because we wanted to make sure we were doing it right,” said Bryan Ho-Yan, program manager of Corporate Energy.
Aside from the logistics of doing an inventory of the existing lights and ordering and preparing 13,000 new ones, Ho-Yan said said the merger of Guelph Hydro with Alectra Utilities also played a small part in the two-year delay.
“I would say that didn’t help,” he said of the merger.
Ho-Yan said the hard part begins this month when installation gets underway.
“We are already getting crews lined up and we are shuffling around inventory so we will be ready to go,” said Ho-Yan.
The actual installation will be done by Alectra Utilities. Ho-Yan said they have the expertise, training and equipment to get the job done.
“They are best suited to do the installation,” he said.
In many instances, only the lamp head will be replaced in the retrofit, but some other pieces that are ageing or broken may need to be replaced entirely.
“Where there is a need to repair or replace, we will be doing that,” said Ho-Yan.
He said about 50 LED streetlights have already been put up, on Speedvale Avenue between Woolwich Street and Stevenson Street, when some street work was done on that strip in the summer.
When the issue came to city council in 2017, councillors heard each of the existing streetlights costs about $121 in electricity to operate, while the City of Barrie spends $67 annually on each streetlight converted to LED.
The retrofit is also expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 464 tonnes per year, the equivalent of taking 98 cars off the road.
The new streetlights will offer adaptive control technology, allowing them to be dimmed across the city, by neighbourhood or even down to the single light.
The $8-million cost of the project is expected to pay for itself in six years and will save the city $14.2 million in 15 years.
Crews will work on the retrofit from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and will continue until summer of 2020.
The city has said the LED streetlights will offer better visibility and will be colour-corrected to reduce light pollution and minimize the annoyance to residents.
The 13,000 streetlights that are coming down will be recycled and properly disposed of, said Ho-Yan. The City will receive a rebate on the project for doing so.
“We would have done that, regardless,” said Ho-Yan.
