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Oct 16, 2024

Amsterdam LED streetlight conversion set to begin | News | dailygazette.com

Reporter A National Grid employee installs a replacement streetlight on Bridge Street on the South Side of Amsterdam on Dec. 3, 2021. AMSTERDAM — The conversion of existing streetlights across the

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A National Grid employee installs a replacement streetlight on Bridge Street on the South Side of Amsterdam on Dec. 3, 2021.

AMSTERDAM — The conversion of existing streetlights across the city of Amsterdam to energy efficient LEDs is finally ready to begin.

“It's been a long development process,” City Engineer Mike Clark said Tuesday.

The project being administered by the New York Power Authority (NYPA) is expected to get underway by Oct. 4. Work should be completed within around three months.

The $2.2 million project is partially funded by a $1.1 million grant from the state Financial Restructuring Board for Local Governments. The city will pay $200,000 with annual electricity savings anticipated from converting the city’s “antiquated” streetlights to energy efficient LEDs.

“It's key to remember that the real driving factor behind this is in terms of our energy demand going forward, it should drop by 80%,” Clark said. “It's a real benefit to this city.”

Officials originally expected the project to begin last year, but it faced a series of delays. An agreement with NYPA to design and undertake the project was approved by the city in September 2021.

Before work could commence, the city had to buy the existing streetlights from National Grid subject to authorization by the state Public Service Commission (PSC).

An $847,886 purchase agreement with National Grid was approved by the city in January 2023, but it took half a year for the PSC to initiate a review of the proposed sale, which was finally authorized in April. The expense was factored into the overall project cost.

Amsterdam closed on the deal and took ownership of the light fixtures this summer. National Grid is maintaining ownership of the over 1,900 utility poles across the city.

Clark is expected to provide an update on the initial neighborhoods where work will take place after receiving those details from contractors.

The only potential downside to the project is that any streetlights that are currently out of order won’t be addressed on an individual basis. They will have to wait as crews work their way across the city replacing each fixture.

“If there's one out, they will be replaced with a brand-new light head and an LED fixture,” said Clark, noting that his office will be able to provide updates on the status of the project to residents concerned about specific streetlight outages. “We expect them to be wrapped up by the end of the year.”

In the event of an emergency, Mayor Michael Cinquanti said there are provisions to replace lights that are damaged by vehicles or are otherwise deemed critical by city police.

“The lifetime of these lights is amazing,” Cinquanti added. “We're hoping that lights blowing out are a thing of the past.”

Switching to modern fixtures is expected to improve the quality of lighting throughout the city to enhance visibility and safety.

Additionally, Clark said the new fixtures feature smart technology providing enhanced control and monitoring of the street lights.

Engineering staff will be able to adjust the brightness of individual fixtures should any complaints be received about lights shining directly into the windows of homes.

Real-time notifications will enable city staff to respond more quickly to outages rather than relying on reports from residents or city police about malfunctioning lights as in the past. Such issues were previously passed on to National Grid to be addressed.

“Being able to manage it from a desktop and to be able to see it on a city map is going to really expedite things, as far as being able to deal with any outage we have or any complaint like that, it's going to be much easier than just relying on word of mouth,” Clark said.

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Reach Ashley Onyon at [email protected] or @AshleyOnyon on X.

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