LED bulbs are slowly making their way to residential neighbourhoods throughout Nanaimo as the City shifts away from orange-glowing high pressure sodium models. (File photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

LED conversions

City of Nanaimo adjusts LED street light conversion strategy, now being done on as needed basis

Aug 18, 2023 | 2:44 PM

NANAIMO — While City crews continue exchanging old high-pressure sodium street lights in favour of LED models, their approach has changed.

The City’s transportation manager Jamie Rose said with the bulbs switched to more functional LED (light-emitting diodes) models on all of their high-traffic priority routes over the past several years, they’re no longer aggressively converting lights in other locations.

“Instead of continuing on with a more formal conversion project process, we’ve kind of shifted gears and we’re really looking more of a replacement program as units fail, as you would do in your house when a light bulb burns out you convert it to the new one.”

In a process that started with public consultation in 2017, followed by completing the first half of the six-phase project, Rose said about 2,600 local street lights still need to be converted to LED.

A majority of the unchanged lights are located in residential, single-family neighbourhoods, Rose told NanaimoNewsNOW.

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“There aren’t really any explicit areas within the city that we haven’t done yet…we have areas in the north end, central and south that we haven’t gotten to yet.”

Rose noted the City obtained a greater return on investment and addressed higher public safety concerns by moving to LED more quickly in busier, higher-traffic areas.

In-house capacity to effectively do the work at the previous rate is also a challenge, Rose said.

Overall, the City of Nanaimo has nearly 5,000 street lights, with all new developments for the past several years outfitted with LED’s.

Most people are on board with LED lights, according to Rose, however he said concerns continually voiced by some people are taken into account.

“We’ve heard some concerns about over-lighting or some dark sky concerns, it is something that we’re absolutely aware of. Over-lighting a situation provides no benefit to us, we want to hit that point of just enough,” Rose said.

In addition to lasting longer and being more energy and financially efficient, Rose said the new LED models are available in numerous models to obtain the right fit for specific circumstances.

“LED’s are much easier to direct the light, which enables us to make sure that the light goes where we want it to as opposed to spilling over to other areas, which was a big problem with the high-pressure sodium lights.”

BC Hydro has more than 4,000 street lights attached to its wooden poles in Nanaimo city limits, which the utility reported have all been switched to LED.

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ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes