The Darien Board of Selectmen approved spending $408,282 to buy 843 street light fixtures from Eversource and then replace them with LED lights — an investment that’s estimated to pay for itself in less than three years and thereafter save the town on electricity bills.
The town has already appropriated $16,000 for a consulting company, Tanko, to conduct an “audit” of the street lights to make sure the 843 count is correct and to find out additional information about the lights. Work on the audit will start if the Board of Finance approves the request Tuesday night.
The Finance Board’s agenda lists the transfer as a “contingency transfer” — a transfer from the town’s contingency fund — so approval from the Representative Town Meeting wouldn’t be needed.
In addition to future energy savings, the town would get an estimated rebate of about $85,000 from Eversource once the audit is done and the sale is completed.
“While it sounds expensive, we will experience a less-than-three-year pay back that the town will reap for converting to LED [lights],” First Selectman Jayme Stevenson said.
Darien Public Works Director Ed Gentile told the board that the audit must be completed and the purchase made by September, or Eversource’s price for the street lights (along with 11 utility poles) will be withdrawn and the town would have to pay a different price, possibly higher.
Stevenson said LED lighting has improved in the past several years. It not only uses less electricity to deliver the same amount of light, but the LED bulbs don’t bulge out the way the current incandescent bulbs do, so light can be directed where it’s needed while producing less glare for neighbors. Also, they don’t need to be changed nearly as often — saving money on maintaining the difficult-to-reach bulbs.
LED lights come in various types that produce different kinds of light. Incandescent bulbs produce a kind of yellowish light. Gentile said he will try to set up different kinds of LED lights in a parking lot to show town officials what the various types look like.
“This is going to be a good step forward,” said Selectman Marc Thorne.
“I agree,” Stevenson said.
Thorne recalled earlier discussions with the consultants where the possibility of remotely controlling the brightness of individual streetlights was discussed.
Stevenson pointed out that at some point in the future, the new lighting fixtures could become wifi facilities, giving people in vehicles or even in homes the ability to access the Internet at much less expense.
Unfortunately, Gentile said, it appears that the wifi technology currently available for both controlling the brightness and starting wifi service from the polls isn’t that good.
“The technology has to get better,” he said. “But I can see that happening eventually. it’s just the next step.”
When the technology is better, the new fixtures can be converted to those uses, he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated Representative Town Meeting approval would be needed to fund the street light project. When the money comes from the contingency fund, the Board of Finance is the final spending authority. The second and third paragraphs have been rewritten to reflect that.