The cost of LED lighting has been dropping dramatically. Anyone who has had a Home Energy Assessment recently knows that the MassSave program is now providing LED bulbs when replacing incandescent bulbs during an energy assessment. The cost and adoption curve is even more dramatic for municipal street lighting. Towns and cities are increasingly installing LED street lighting which provides a higher quality light, lowers costs dramatically, and significantly reduces outages.
Several years ago, the Town of Needham completed the purchase of all municipal street lights from NStar (now Eversource). Now Needham is preparing to convert our street lighting to LEDs.
Many, if not most towns, are looking strictly at an economic analysis to choose their replacement lighting. Needham is taking a different path. Recognizing that LED streetlights have different characterstics of overall light delivered (measured in lumens) and color (color temperature, measured in Kelvins), Needham’s DPW has chosen to do an LED Street Light Pilot, so that residents can weigh in with their preferences.
The pilot is underway between May 1st and July 31st 2017. Three streets off Great Plain Avenue have been equipped with different LED streetlights with a fourth having the current High Pressure Sodium lighting (that gives off a yellow glow).
Green Needham encourages you to visit these streets at night to check out the lighting, then fill out the Town’s survey with your preferences.
Please also see our follow-on post to learn more about outdoor lighting and the impact of your choices.
The DPW hopes to include funding for the LED replacement program in the FY 2018-19 budget that would be presented to Town Meeting in May, 2018.
| Street | Lighting Type | # of Lights | Watts | Kelvins | Lumens | Make | Simple Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stevens Road | LED | 6 | 19 | 4000 | 1932 | VRDN | 7.3 years |
| PInewood Road | LED | 5 | 20 | 3000 | 2100 | ECI | 7.9 years |
| Eaton Road | LED | 4 | 19 | 3000 | 1980 | XPR - Adjustable | 7.9 years |
| Coolidge Road | HPS | 7 | 50 | N/A | 4000 | Sylvania | N/A |
Had fun driving up and down the 4 Needham streets chosen for the street light pilot with my husband and two friends. The brightness and color of the LED lights on Eaton Road were preferred by three of us, while the driver preferred Pinewood Road.