Energy-efficient streetlights could soon line a street near you as Coquitlam city council prepares to vote next week on fitting more than 2,800 of its current lamp standards with self-dimming timers.
After an initial trial of energy-saving streetlights, including LED lights and the "adaptive" lights which grow dimmer later at night, residents of a lower Ranch Park neighbourhood were polled for their input on the project.
Now that those questionnaires are in and show an overall support for the energy efficient technologies, the program's manager is ready to take it citywide by the summer if he gets the approving nod from council.
"I hope council won't reject it," said Coquitlam utility programs manager, Dana Soong. "I'm not aware of any kind of substantial concerns by council on this."
Due to the high cost of the LED lamps, however - about $750 each - the city's engineering utilities and environment committee recommended that the LED option be dropped from the citywide proposal in favour of an all-adaptive streetlight option.
Unlike the LEDs which, if installed on all 2,826 Coquitlam's "cobra-head" style streetlights, would cost the city an estimated $2.26 million and take almost 26 years before the energy savings would put the project in the black, the adaptive lighting option is quite cheap.
In fact, installing dimmers on existing streetlights would cost nearly one-tenth of what the LEDS cost at $228,284 - a sum which the energy savings would pay down in less than five years.
The adaptive lighting currently works by decreasing the electrical output to the lamps between the hours of 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. These times, Soong said, could be adjusted remotely by city staff to accommodate different traffic patterns in different areas of the city.
But in addition to the more than 2,200 cobra-head lights that the city owns, there are several thousand other "post-top" style lights and lights mounted on telephone and hydro poles that the adaptive units cannot be fitted onto, Soong said.
While only 26 residents of the 135 polled by the city responded with their questionnaires in time for the city's deadline, their responses were overwhelmingly in favour of any streetlight technology which would reduce energy use, with "the environment" and "cost savings" ranking as the most popular reasons for supporting the project.
Adaptive streetlights would save Coquitlam approximately 25% on its streetlighting costs, which currently represent one-third of the city's total energy bill.
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