By Wayne D. King
Fitchburg is planning to turn off 60% of its lights this year to save money, here's a better idea that will save you more, take your budget for replacing burned out lights and install a new retrofit LED system or retrofit all your lights and save.
Source article: WBZ.com
There are a few important facts to know about LED Technology and Incandescent lighting to fully appreciate this letter.
1. Incandescent street lights have a maximum life of 2 years and go out when they fail
2. LED Lights have an average life of 10.5 years and because they are composed of multiple LEDs they only fade when they "fail".
3. The average incandescent Street light cost $168/year in electricity
4. The Average LED Retrofit costs about $21/year in electricity
5. Insects are not attracted to LED
To Public Works commissioner Lenny Laakso and the people of Fitchburg.
I understand where Mr. Laakso is coming from. The cost of operating street lights is a killer on the budget, and aside from the debatable issue of safety, its a no brainer if the question comes down to keeping schools open or street lights lit.
But a newly patented technology may just solve the problem for you without shutting down 60% of your lights, there may even be some stimulus funds available for installing them.
Recently Best LEDLighting has applied for a patent on a new system for retrofitting street lights. LED Street lights will cost 80-90% less than the traditional incandescent light and save an equal amount in maintenance costs.
Lets look at the numbers.
According to the WBZ.com story on March 13, 2009, the City has about 3000 lights that will be under consideration for this shutdown. They probably have more lights than this, but lets work with this number.
Every Incandescent streetlight costs an average of $168 per year to operate. On an annual basis therefor the city spends about 504,000 for these lights. In addition to this 1/2 of all incandescent street lights mist be replaced every year and the cost of replacement including the light, a bucket truck and maintenance worker averages about $250/light. For 1,500 light that about $375,000. So the total cost for keeping 3000 lights lit and maintained each year is about $879,000. That's a hefty sum.
According to the WBZ.com story turning off 60% of street lights will save about $240,000. But this savings number does not include the maintenance savings. The actual savings will probably be closer to $445,000. Of the 3000 lights, 1800 will be shut off.
If the city were to simply shut off these 1800 street lights there would be a substantial savings while they were off. At some point in the future they will simply be turned back on and the cost to the community will spike back up again. Lets imagine for the sake of argument that this happens after 3 years, so that there are 3 years of saving at $445,000 per year. In a moment you'll see why this matters.
Now let's try a different approach to the problem. Using a newly patented LED Streetlight Retrofit process, we'll look at two possible alternatives and the cost over 10 years:
1. The Zero Sum Solution
Using only the existing street light maintenance budget to convert as many street lights to LED as possible within the existing budget. This is the "Zero Sum" solution. The city realizes its anticipated savings but instead of turning off 1800 street lights the city turns off some and retrofits the others. This new LED technology is more expensive than replacing one incandescent light but it is much more affordable than any other alternative previously available, so for every 3 lights that the city budgeted for replacing, they could retrofit one streetlight with LED Technology. This means in the first year 1/3 of the lights will be retrofit and 2/3 shut off; in year 2 the second third would be retrofit and only 1/3 would remain off; in year 3 the remainder of the lights would be retrofit.
Your Plan - Turn off all 1800 Street Lights - The City's Solution
Year 1 : savings $240,000
Year 2: savings $240,000
Year 3: savings $240,000
Year 4-10: cost $240,000/year or 1.68 million
Net savings for first 3 years: $720,000
Net cost for 10 years: 1.68 million - $720,000 = - $960.000
Retrofit Option 1 - Convert 1/3 to LED each year for 3 years
Cost to operate the 1/3 LED for the entire year: $12,240 (no this is not a typo). This must be subtracted from the savings.
Year 1 : savings $228,000
Year 2: savings $216,000
Year 3: savings $203,000
Year 4-10 Cost: 37,800/year = $264,600
Net savings for first 3 years: $647,000
Net savings for 10 years: $264,600 - $720,000 = $455,000.
Summary: The 10 year cost for just shutting off light for 3 years and then turning them back on is almost 1 million dollars. If the city retrofits 1/3 of the lights at no additional cost to taxpayers there is a net savings of $455,000. All this is achieved using the maintenance budget for conversion costs.
The other approach would be for the city to borrow the full amount needed to make the conversion of the street lights (approximately 2.25 M) financed over 3 years.
2. The Green Investment Solution
Bonding a complete retrofit of all streetlights for 3 years and converting all of the lights to LED.
Year 1-3: $791.000/year (annual cost of existing lights plus maintenance: $879,000)
Year 4-10: $63,000/year or $441,000
Total cost over 10 years including all costs to retrofit: $2,814,000 compared to $8.79 Million for keeping, running and maintaining the incandescent lighting. Saving your taxpayers almost 6 million dollars. Psssst. The second decade looks even better (10 million plus) because you are not paying to retrofit the lights.
Wayne King's company, Moosewood Communications, promotes cutting edge green solutions including Best LEDLighting's LED Retrofit solution.
Learn more at their blog http://GreenerMinds.blogspot.com
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