The weekend time change and the coming winter solstice has put darkness into new light around the city.
Using the available light to create nighttime illumination has been an ongoing project for the municipality for months. The city obtained a grant to pay for the conversion of some standard street lights to solar powered ones. "We are about half installed, we have 825 altogether," said Al Clark, the city's manager of the project. "Some of the streets along 15th Avenue, some along Ospika, Tyner, River Road, and you can tell the lights with the solar technology because there is an antennae that sticks down. It is sending information to a computer program we can log into and adjust the dimming percent of the bulb, monitor the energy use, we can tell if the light is out due to a problem with the sensor that shuts it on or off, it is a very comprehensive system."
The chief reason for the city's interest in this conversion campaign is to reduce costs. The solar lights not only spare the city on electricity usage but also cut down on the brightness of the bulb, so the equipment lasts longer.
"To the naked eye you won't really be able to tell the lights have dimmed," Clark said. "When we dim, we are actually not having the light burn as bright right off the start, so we should also be able to extend the life-span of the bulbs themselves."
The pilot study showed a 30 to 40 per cent savings in energy use, Clark said.
"Right now we are estimating, when we are fully up and running, it will be a $33,000 savings per year in what we would pay to BC Hydro. Now BC Hydro has come up with a new billing formula that adjusts us to less costs based on the use of these lights."
There isn't a lot of effort involved in each light's conversion, Clark said. The same light standard and the same bulbs are used for both, there is just some added hardware details.
If the savings and the maintenance issues around this new technology turns out well, there would likely be more conversions in the future, Clark said, but data needed to be collected and some in-the-field experience had to be gained.
