City of Cleveland could soon change 67,000 streetlights to LED, which use just a fraction of the power burned by current conventional lighting.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland is moving closer to becoming one of few Ohio cities to convert its energy-hungry streetlights to LED fixtures, and network them into a "smart grid" capable of instantly reporting burnouts and other problems.
Most Ohio cities buy power from companies such as FirstEnergy and American Electric Power. Only FirstEnergy is offering an experimental LED street-lighting rate with state regulators.
The limited tariffs have effectively blocked municipalities from switching to LED fixtures, which are not only brighter than conventional lighting, but use far less power.
The problem is that streetlights are not metered. Instead, cities pay a fixed price per streetlight, based on wattage and an estimate that in Ohio they burn about 4,200 hours per year.
Cleveland Public Power would not have that problem because the smart controls it wants to install in every LED fixture would be capable of metering the power used by that fixture. In other words, CPP wants to end the fixed price per streetlight.
That alone is expected to drive down costs. Streetlights now cost the city's General Fund about $12 million a year. And it is expected that a city-wide conversion to LEDs would at least keep that cost from growing, though it is too early to predict.
It's not just about using less power. Because LEDs' last longer than conventional lighting, crews do not have to replace them as often, another cost savings both in labor and new bulbs.
Public Utilities Director Robert Davis and James Ferguson, chief of street lighting at Cleveland Public Power, briefed members of City Council's Utilities Committee a week ago on the results of a two-year 1,000-LED-fixture pilot program involving 15 different LED or LED controls manufacturers.
They also briefed the committee on the purpose of the citywide-streetlight inventory that CPP now wants to have an outside consultant conduct before it buys any more LED streetlights.
The Public Utilities Department on Wednesday is seeking approval from city lawmakers to spend up to $300,000 of money already in its budget to hire the consulting company.
The consultants would take stock of the effectiveness of some 67,000 streetlights on every street in the city and determine how many LED streetlights the city would require, given that they are more effective than traditional lighting.
Ferguson told Utility Committee members that the street-by-street survey and analysis would take about 90 days.
He said the study, which he expects will find redundant lighting in some areas, would help CPP create a plan to finance the conversion from the existing high-pressure sodium lighting to LED fixtures.
"There are several manufacturers that we are looking at that use a savings-based financing model," he explained, and said the $12 million that the General Fund pays annually would not change.
"Based on the savings after the first year, all of the savings from the reduced maintenance and reduced consumption is going to be directly paid back, or used to pay back for the equipment and the installation," he said.
Neither Ferguson nor Davis revealed the name of consulting firm, though they did say it had been chosen through a competitive process. And committee members did not directly ask them to identify the consultant.
Cleveland Public Power Commissioner Ivan Henderson in an interview later said the company would be identified when the city's Board of Control actually authorized the city to hire the company.
Henderson said the plan, once the inventory is done and a financing strategy developed, is to convert all of the street lights in one program that would be competitively bid.
The smart grid CPP envisions using to connect the thousands of LED lights appears to have limitless control and information-gathering possibilities. The grid would use WiFi or fiber-optic cables.
Ferguson told committee members that CPP would not only be able to tell immediately that a streetlight or entire circuit had failed, but could also use the fixture's "adaptive" smart photocell technology to gather other information, such as:
- Measure snow fall per hour on any street.
- Detect the number of people walking in a neighborhood or vehicles passing through.
- Detect smoke or other pollutants on a street.
- Hear and report the sound of gunfire.
Ferguson said the controls are similar to the "apps" people download to their smartphones.
"There are endless amounts of apps that you can add to these platforms," he explained.