LED streetlights brighten Bellingham roads

As the city heads into the bleak midwinter, its roads will be brighter and look more colorful as less-efficient streetlamps are replaced with energy-saving LED lighting.

Crews from Northwest Edison, subcontractor for Seattle-based energy company McKinstry, started replacing Bellingham’s old high-pressure sodium lights with LEDs on Dec. 7.

The plan is to have the city’s roughly 3,600 lights changed over within about five weeks, Superintendent of Traffic Clark Williams said Wednesday, Dec. 16.

The $4 million project is expected to be repaid with energy savings from the lights within 12 years. The project also received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Energy Efficiency Grants program, and will qualify for about $400,000 in rebates from Puget Sound Energy.

The lights are guaranteed to last 10 years but are expected to last for 20. Current bulbs need to be replaced every three to five years.

The new fixtures will use 50 to 60 percent less energy to put out the same amount of light. They don’t contain toxic mercury and lead that can make recycling difficult, as with the current lamps.

The white light from the LEDs will appear brighter than the current orange sodium glow, and better show colors as they are.

Each light will have a sensor that can remotely tell city staff through a control system whether the bulb has an issue or needs to be replaced. With that system, all of the lights can be dimmed remotely during off-peak times to save even more energy.

“It’s a new, online-hosted software platform the city will have that allows us to talk to each individual streetlight independently from our office,” Williams said. “Our street-lighting network will report back each day and tell us which lights are burned out or having a problem.”

Currently, the city relies on neighbors calling in to say their streetlight is out.

Lights already have been replaced on parts of Old Fairhaven Parkway and Sunset Drive.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 4:57 PM with the headline "LED streetlights brighten Bellingham roads."