Energy-Saving LED Streetlights Installation Begins in Town of Plattsburgh

For Immediate Release: 10/24/22

Contact: Alex Chiaravalle | media.inquiries@nypa.gov | (518) 860-9935

 

NYPA Partners with Town to Replace all Streetlights with LED Fixtures

 

New York State More Than Halfway Towards Achieving Goal of Converting 500,000 Street Lights to LED Technology by 2025 Under Smart Street Lighting NY Program

 

WHITE PLAINS—The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the Town of Plattsburgh are installing energy-efficient SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) LED streetlights throughout the town as part of the state’s Smart Street Lighting NY program. New York has now replaced hundreds of thousands of its streetlights with LED fixtures as part of the state’s goal to replace at least 500,000 streetlights with LED technology by 2025 under Smart Street Lighting NY. The initiative directly supports the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the most aggressive clean energy law in the nation, through the increased use of energy efficiency by participating municipalities to annually reduce their electricity demand by three percent—equivalent to 1.8 million New York households—by 2025.

 

The more than $1 million upgrade includes the replacement of the town’s 1,359 streetlights with energy-saving LED fixtures. The project is expected to reduce the town’s greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 70 metric tons annually—the emissions equivalent of consuming more than 7,700 gallons of gasoline. The installation is expected to complete in early 2023.

 

“NYPA is proud to partner with Plattsburgh to install new, energy-efficient LED streetlights, which will ultimately save the town more than $76,000 in annual energy and maintenance costs,” said NYPA Interim President and CEO Justin E. Driscoll. “The Smart Street Lighting NY program offers municipalities a cost-effective solution that upgrades critical infrastructure while curbing carbon emissions.”

 

“The Town of Plattsburgh is thrilled to be working with NYPA on this LED conversion,” said Plattsburgh Town Supervisor Michael S. Cashman. “Already Clinton County’s first community designated by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as a Clean Energy Community, this further advances our commitment to sustainable practices and smart growth. But equally important, this initiative provides cost saving and new efficiencies to our residents.”

 

As part of the project, NYPA will also install SMART nodes on 44 existing LED streetlights within Plattsburgh. NYPA will also provide long-term maintenance for those lights under its streetlighting maintenance program. Additionally, the town will benefit from a new asset management system to monitor and control the entire streetlight system, providing outage reporting.

 

Some additional municipalities that have already converted to LED streetlights in collaboration with NYPA include: Albany, Utica, Rochester, Syracuse, and White Plains, among others.

 

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 80 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, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn.