ATCO Electric is looking to convert Lloydminster street lights to LED to create over $11,000 in savings a year for the city.
The power company already provides power to the city’s street lights, but is looking to convert High Pressure Sodium bulbs (HPS) to LED. Currently, there are LED street lights in place, but most of the lights are HPS.
ATCO is presenting a model where they will pay for the change in lights and the city will have to pay a utility rate on top of their power usage. Councilor Michael Diachuk says this will help the city save costs.
“The reality is though is that our power usage is going to go down fractionally to the point where we actually we save and pay a dollar less a month.”
ATCO is also promising to fix any lights that get damaged at no additional cost. Diachuk adds that this is not a new model, power companies in the past have partnered with cities for savings on both sides.
“So with the reduced power use that’s where we benefit and so in that period of time now ATCO says all of the power we haven’t sold to the city of Lloydminster we now have available to us.”
One of the issues presented by council is that ATCO does not cover all the street lights in the city, only in Alberta, which can cause a colour light issue. Diachuk says he is not concerned with the colour of the lights because it’s hard to identify the difference on either side of the border.
“We’ve already seen some of the lights replaced and you have to look pretty hard to see the difference.”
The city is asking for more information before a final decision is made.