Ann Arbor City Council discusses conversion of streetlights to LED technology

The Ann Arbor City Council met Monday in Larcom City Hall to discuss a planned replacement of 4,000 high-pressure sodium bulb streetlights. The resolution proposed replacing the bulbs with 58-watt LEDs. This change was proposed in line with Ann Arbor’s goal of transitioning the city to 100% renewable energy by 2030.

The meeting began with 45 minutes of public commentary. Of the 17 public speakers, 10 spoke in opposition to the proposal due to its plan to use a single wattage for both local and arterial streets. Arterial streets generally use higher-wattage bulbs that provide more light due to the larger amount of traffic and the greater need for visibility. Local or suburban streets generally use lower-wattage bulbs in order to prioritize residents’ comfort.

Leslie Mason, an Ann Arbor community member, said her experience with a bulb on her street being replaced with a high-wattage LED harmed her sleep habits.

“I actually experienced this a couple months ago,” Mason said. “(DTE) installed a much brighter light in front of my house. I immediately noticed that I could not sleep at night, it was lighting up the entire inside of my bedroom. My neighbors actually likened it to having a spotlight shining in their window at night.”

James D’Amour, another community member, urged council members not only to think of energy sustainability, but also the sustainability of local ecosystems.

“I want to take this in terms of a sustainability aspect,” D’Amour said. “We need to work together to provide dependability for our natural system … high beam lights affect nocturnal insects and creatures. I think fireflies in particular (are) one example but there are certainly many others. So we need to look at the big picture when were looking at decisions regarding sustainability.”

Following public commentary, Skye Stewart, Public Services Administration chief of staff, elaborated on some of the obstacles to replacing the current bulbs with a mix of both high and low-wattage LEDs. She explained that bulbs under 58 watts would have to be specially ordered, because DTE does not traditionally carry them. 

“The DTE standard fixture offerings have a color temperature of 4,000 — a bright, cool white — and their current standard wattages range from 58-watt to 206-watt,” Stewart said. “DTE’s initial agreement with the city would have converted every single light as part of this project to their standard 4,000 Kelvin color temperature and more than 1,000 lights would be converted to a wattage above 58 watts.”

Stewart explained that DTE has already done a lot of work to make the replacement LEDs less disruptive to residents.

“In the intervening months, staff have successfully advocated to get a revised agreement with DTE which will result in warmer lights across the board and a color temperature of 2700 Kelvin, nearly all fixtures being 58-watt.”

Stewart also shared that labor costs would be higher due to needing increased staff to manage the varying responsibilities required for multiple wattages.

“A lighting engineer — either a full-time equivalent or consultant support — would be needed for the upfront effort to establish the street by street lighting plans to determine at each DTE streetlight the preferred wattage,” Stewart said. “Additionally, a part-time inventory technician or similar would be needed for ongoing stocking, tracking, verification and maintenance access, etc.”

Regarding cost and electricity efficiency between 58 and 28-watt bulbs, Stewart said the difference would be marginal relative to the efficiency already being achieved from the switch to LEDs.

“The larger efficiency gains would be from switching from the less efficient and higher wattage high-pressure sodium lights — which are up to 400 watts in some instances — to more efficient LED fixtures,” Stewart said. “The difference between installing the 58 watt and the 29-watt LED lights for a portion of the fixtures would be relatively minor in comparison.”

Due to the large negative public response and the many complications put forth by Stewart, the council voted to postpone the vote on the resolution to the next city council meeting.

Councilmember Erica Briggs, D-Ward 5, said she was disappointed by DTE’s attempts to pass off costs onto the city. She supported the amendment in order to give DTE the opportunity to find a more community-oriented solution.

“I would like to move to postpone this evening so that staff can return to DTE and say that this is a community priority that they should not be charging us for,” Briggs said. “These are their assets that they should be coming up with a plan for, and this should not cause significant extra full-time staff for us to manage.”

Mayor Christopher Taylor also expressed his support of the postponement in order to give staff more time to find solutions that are more amenable to the community at large.

“I’m in favor of this postponement because I’m looking forward to staff engaging with DTE to determine whether there are … lower-lumen alternatives that can be effectively and efficiently distributed throughout local streets.”

Taylor also thanked staff and DTE for their work on this project.

“I’d like to, for my own part, express great gratitude to staff for working on this,” Taylor said. “And I’d also like to acknowledge that DTE is working with us and communicating with us on this point in a context in which it is not obligated. And so they are engaging with us on this point. They can do more and I hope they do.”

Daily Staff Reporter Lyra Wilder can be reached at lyrawild@umich.edu.

The post Ann Arbor City Council discusses conversion of streetlights to LED technology appeared first on The Michigan Daily.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *