Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Early results of the Palouse LED lights experiment show savings on both sets of the town’s streetlights.
Palouse was one of six cities selected by the state’s Transportation Improvement Board (T.I.B.) to participate in the project which involved the city working with Avista Utilities to convert existing street and area lighting to the new LED (light emitting diode) technology.
A total of 54 lights were replaced on Whitman and Main streets.
The experiment’s first month in effect was November 2013. That was the first month Palouse turned on all of the city’s lights after operating only half of the Main Street lights because of city budget constraints.
The town’s Avista electric bill for October 2013 with the old lights and half of the Main Street lights turned off was $291. A year later, in October of 2014, with all of the lights running on new LED bulbs the cost was $190.
For Whitman Street, the October 2013 cost was $95 while the October 2014 bill was $53.53.
“That’s very good,” said Mayor Michael Echanove. “You times that by 20 years and you really start to see the value of projects like this. It’s quite a technology.”
Palouse owns the Main Street lights and the operation cost comes out of the street fund.
Previously, Palouse budgeted $18,000 per year for streetlights.This cost is a target of the T.I.B. lights experiment.
“If they can get the city to spend less on lights, there’s more for streets,” Echanove said. “So you see it’s going to work… I think T.I.B. can take good data back to the legislature. Now you can reduce your power bill and put it back in your streets.”
The city rents its overhead lights on Whitman Street from Avista.
With the test underway in six towns across the state, the T.I.B. completed a post-implementation study six months ago.
“The results were excellent,” said Steve Gorcester, executive director of T.I.B. “We found out that we can actually prove the point we were trying to prove.”
The T.I.B. has determined that it takes approximately five years for return on investment for LED lights.
“Which is very fast for a capital expense,” Gorcester said. “Everything thereafter is benefit. For all of the costs of installing you get back 1.25 that amount in value. It’s a 125 percent multiplier in benefit.”
In April, Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued Executive Order 1404, an effort to reduce carbon emissions, which included streetlight replacement for the estimated 200,000 lights in Washington cities and towns. The T.I.B. had included this in their current budget request.
As for the T.I.B.’s six-town LED project, Palouse was chosen as a representative of communities served by a private utility.
Previous T.I.B. studies were conducted to determine the feasibility and economic benefits of converting existing street and area lighting systems to the LED systems.
The studies focused on the evaluation of potential demonstration sites, including Palouse; research and evaluation of regulatory requirements and tariffs; opportunities and barriers to LED deployment; performance of LED street and area lighting technology; and deployment in selected communities.
Other towns chosen to take part in the program included Benton City, Blaine, Buckley, Coulee Dam and Ridgefield.
“Greg Partch was instrumental in getting this started when he was in office,” Echanove said of the former Whitman County commissioner, who also served on the state T.I.B. board.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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