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City Says Brighter, Whiter -- And Less Costly -- Street Lights Will Be Installed Basically Citywide Thru 2016; City Will Retrofit Intersection Signals And Street Lights With More Efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)


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(Oct. 30, 2015) -- The City of Long Beach has announced it will begin retrofitting its intersection street signals and current yellowish street lights with Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)...and city staff tells LBREPORT.com that the result should be brighter and whiter/less yellow illumination with reduced energy and maintenance costs.

In a broader sense, the change will rid the city of the last remnants of a yellowish nighttime tinge that arguably one of LB City Hall's most visible self-inflicted wounds (see Amnesia File below.)

A City Hall release says the new LED lights are "expected to annually reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7,297 tons and save $1 million in energy and maintenance costs."

The release says the first phase of the project will replace 1,750 intersection lights funded by a $659,000 Port of Long Beach Community Mitigation Grant and will take about two months to complete. The second phase is scheduled to begin in early 2016 and continue through the year, replacing over 24,000 yellowish high-pressure sodium lights with LED streetlights. The cost of about $6.1 million is being covered in part by SCE rebates of $3.2 million to the City for the retrofit. "Through various savings, it is estimated the City will recover the project's costs in three years," the City's release says.

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Seyron Foo in LB's Dept. of Public Works says the work will be done citywide. LEDs will be installed in overhead intersection fixtures, the type typically seen in most city intersections (not "shoe-box" style intersection lights), Mr. Foo said. Street lights using current "cobra-head" type fixtures will also be retrofitted with the LEDs throughout 2016

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What about "decorative" fixtures in historic areas like Cal Hts (along Orange Ave.?) "Yes, they will be changed as well," Mr. Foo said by email.

The work is scheduled for completion by the end of 2016 or early 2017 (assuming El Nino rains don't disrupt the work too badly.)

Mr. Foo said the LEDs are more efficient and increase the light level without increasing wattage. He said the new LED lights are also more directional, meaning they'll direct lights onto streets and sidewalks while reducing light pollution on homes.

City Hall's release indicates that the LEDs can be integrated into a "smart network" that in the future could enable brightness controls with the touch of a button for public safety responders [no time frame indicated for this.]

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The City's release states:

The LED retrofit project is administered by the Energy Network, a program sponsored by Los Angeles County and authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2012 to achieve energy savings in Southern California.

According to the Energy Network, the retrofit will save about 9.6 million kilowatts hours of electricity each year, reducing Long Beach’s overall energy consumption by almost 10 percent. Reduced carbon emissions associated with the savings are the equivalent to taking over 21,000 cars off the road over the LED’s lifespan.

LED lights used for the streetlights have a projected lifespan of 100,000 hours, or 24 years of life when in operation 12 hours per day, meaning projected lifetime savings for the retrofit are estimated to be $15.1 million.

The City also partnered with City Light and Power for this project.

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Amnesia File

LB's current street lights, which appear yellowish and dim to many, are actually a visible improvement over more deeply yellowish and less bright-appearing street lights that city officials chose to install in the late 1970s and years that followed. That action stemmed from a City Hall decision to follow a policy advanced during President Carter's administration to address what it called an "oil energy crisis." (The policies had drivers waiting in lines on rationed days to buy gasoline, and limited to 55 mph on highways.) In this atmosphere, LB City Hall installed low-pressure sodium lights, which consumed less energy, but only produced light within a relatively small portion of the visible light spectrum. The result cast a deep yellow pall across the city which, to many human eyes appeared dim (although engineeers with light meters measuring foot-candles claimed otherwise.) A civic rebellion followed, and after a grassroots group tried legal and political measures that fell short, city officials grudgingly concluded that the low sodium lights were a blunder.

Talk of a costly assessment district to replace the yellow lights was a political non-starter and a stalemate continued until then-City Manager Jim Hankla came up with a remedy in the mid 1990s that (like many good remedies) was elegant in its simplicity.

The City hired a private firm, City Light and Power, to operate the city's lighting system for roughly what the city was then-paying to run the system itself and as part of the deal, the private firm agreed to replace the low pressure sodium lights with high pressure sodium lights. The high pressure sodium lights (in use today) produce a broader spectrum of light and are a visible improvement over the deeply yellow lights that LB endured through parts of two decades...but LED lights produce a wider spectrum of light, closer to white light in displaying colors...and do so at less cost.

LBREPORT.com asked the City's Public Information contact who gets the annual $1 million energy and maintenance savings, cited in the City's release, the City itself or the operator, City Light and Power? Program Specialist Rachel Tanner in the City Manager's office did some checking and provided us with this emailed reply: "The City will realize these energy and maintenance savings, and the savings will be used to fund the project. So it is a direct benefit to the City."

If the plan delivers as promised, by the end of next year (assuming no weather related delays), Long Beach should see brighter streets with less energy consumption and less cost.


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