City of Albany council back bulk replacement of street lights with energy-saving LEDS

The City of Albany council has given the green light to a plan to replace nearly 4000 old street lights with energy-saving LEDS — at a cost of $2.615 million — a move which is expected to nearly halve greenhouse gas emissions from the City’s street light network.

Councillors went behind closed doors at a meeting last Tuesday to debate the motion, before backing an officer’s recommendation to replace the City’s Western-Power managed street lights with “Smart Enable LED Luminaires”.

The officer’s recommendation was passed eight votes to three.

The $2.615m will be allocated across the City’s next two budgets.

It comes after the council in June last year approved the bulk replacement plan, on the condition that the City was able to secure $625,000 from the State Government’s Clean Energy Future Fund.

But their application fell flat, leaving the City to cover the costs, averaging $690 per light.

An officer’s report tabled ahead of the meeting revealed the City’s existing streetlights came with an estimated $729,000 annual price tag.

According to the report, energy used by LED lamps is 80 per cent less than the existing street lights, with “significant greenhouse gas savings” another positive as the City works towards a target of net zero emissions by 2030.

“The LED replacement will be the single greatest energy reduction project the City has implemented,” the report said.

LEDs would reduce the City’s annual carbon emissions from streetlights by 42.2 per cent, the report said..

Albany is part of a group of five councils that has backed a “super-trial” to boost the uptake of LEDs street lights across the State in a bid to reduce power consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and costs.

The councils have already commissioned a business case and financial feasibility study supporting the viability of replacing the councils’ combined 47,000 luminaries with LEDs, representing 17 per cent of the streetlights in the Western Power grid.