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

Oct 12, 2023

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

“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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