NYPA Press Release

City-Wide Energy-Efficient Lighting Upgrades to Result in Energy Cost Savings and Emissions Reductions

Statewide Smart Street Lighting NY Program Calls for 500,000 Street Lights to Be Converted to LED Technology by 2025; Halfway Mark announced in September

WHITE PLAINS—The New York Power Authority is partnering with the City of Rome to replace all of its streetlights with energy-efficient LED technology as part of Smart Street Lighting NY, a statewide program that calls for at least 500,000 streetlights throughout the state to be replaced with LED technology by 2025. The energy efficiency project includes the installation of more than 3,800 streetlights, improving lighting quality and neighborhood safety while reducing energy and maintenance costs. The new LED streetlights will reduce carbon emissions by approximately 656 metric tons—the equivalent of removing nearly 150 passenger vehicles from the road.

The nearly $4.6 million lighting upgrade—which is being financed by NYPA—will feature asset management nodes, and the capability for the lights to be dimmed and remotely controlled. Such controls will allow for the automatic reporting of outages, minimizing maintenance costs. The city is also considering including smart city features such as intelligent transportation components, public Wi-Fi access points, mobile digital designs, and improved public safety camera systems. 

Anthony J. Picente Jr., NYPA trustee and Oneida County executive, said, “The Power Authority’s Smart Street Lighting NY program plays a major role in fulfilling the goals set in the state’s Climate Act—the most ambitious climate change law in the nation. The City of Rome’s partnership with NYPA shows the city’s leadership in climate action and Oneida County’s commitment to creating a more energy efficient New York.”

NYPA Interim President and CEO Justin E. Driscoll said, “Street Lighting NY has been a tremendous success because it offers municipalities the opportunity to modernize critical infrastructure while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy efficiency, improving safety, and saving taxpayer dollars. NYPA is proud to partner with the City of Rome to help create a safer, greener New York State.”

Mayor of Rome Jacqueline M. Izzo said, “The City of Rome has been working with NYPA for the last two years creating a plan to replace more than 3,800 streetlights throughout the city as well as the Griffiss Business and Technology Park with more energy efficient LED streetlights. The LED streetlights will significantly lower the city’s annual streetlight electricity bill by almost 50% while helping to meet New York State’s Climate Act goals to reduce carbon emissions. Through our partnership with NYPA, the city is also exploring smart city opportunities that may be available once the LED bulbs and smart nodes are installed on the streetlight poles. We hope to have the full conversion completed in 2022.

New York has now replaced approximately 300,000 of its streetlights with LED fixtures, a significant milestone in the state’s goal to replace at least 500,000 streetlights with LED technology by 2025 under Smart Street Lighting NY. Some municipalities that have already converted to LED streetlights in collaboration with NYPA include: Albany, Utica, Rochester, Syracuse, and White Plains, among others.

The street lighting initiative directly supports the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (the Climate Act), the most aggressive climate change law in the nation, through the increased use of energy efficiency to annually reduce electricity demand by three percent—equivalent to 1.8 million New York households—by 2025.

Smart Street Lighting NY: Energy Efficient and Economically Advantageous

NYPA is working with cities, towns, villages and counties throughout New York to fully manage and implement a customer’s transition to LED streetlight technology. NYPA provides upfront financing for the project, with payments to NYPA made in the years following from the cost-savings created by the reduced energy use of the LED streetlights, which are 50 to 65 percent more efficient than alternative street lighting options.

Through this statewide street lighting program, NYPA’s government customers are provided a wide array of lighting options to help meet their individual needs, including specifications on the lights to incorporate SMART technology, which can be used for dozens of other functions, such as cameras and other safety features, weather sensors, Wi-Fi and energy meters.

To further advance the state’s effort to replace existing New York street lighting, in 2020, NYPA launched a new maintenance service to provide routine and on-call maintenance services for LED street lighting fixtures installed by NYPA throughout the state. The new service is available to municipalities that have engaged NYPA to implement a LED street lighting conversion and have elected to install an asset management controls system on their street lighting system, reducing the number of failures and repairs needed after installation is complete.

To learn more about the Smart Street Lighting NY program, visit the program webpage on NYPA’s website.

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New York State's Nation-Leading Climate Plan

New York State's nation-leading climate agenda is the most aggressive climate and clean energy initiative in the nation, calling for an orderly and just transition to clean energy that creates jobs and continues fostering a green economy as New York State recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. Enshrined into law through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, New York is on a path to achieve its mandated goal of a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040, including 70 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, and to reach economy wide carbon neutrality. It builds on New York's unprecedented investments to ramp-up clean energy including over $33 billion in 102 large-scale renewable and transmission projects across the state, $6.8 billion to reduce buildings emissions, $1.8 billion to scale up solar, more than $1 billion for clean transportation initiatives, and over $1.6 billion in NY Green Bank commitments. Combined, these investments are supporting nearly 158,000 jobs in New York's clean energy sector in 2020, a 2,100 percent growth in the distributed solar sector since 2011 and a commitment to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035. Under the Climate Act, New York will build on this progress and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050, while ensuring that at least 35 percent with a goal of 40 percent of the benefits of clean energy investments are directed to disadvantaged communities, and advance progress towards the state's 2025 energy efficiency target of reducing on-site energy consumption by 185 trillion BTUs of end-use energy savings.

About NYPA
NYPA is the largest state public power organization in the nation, operating 16 generating facilities and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of transmission lines. More than 70 percent of the electricity NYPA produces is clean renewable hydropower. NYPA uses no tax money or state credit. It finances its operations through the sale of bonds and revenues earned in large part through sales of electricity. For more information visit www.nypa.gov and follow us on Twitter @NYPAenergy, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn.