The Ministry of Infrastructure has embarked on a project to upgrade the LED street lighting component in collaboration with LUCELEC and to provide low tension lines to specific areas in an effort to better power and manage the street lights requirement.
On Thursday, aside from an in-depth consultation session, Chief Electrical Engineer in the Ministry of Infrastructure Shane Jean provided reporters with an update on the current LED street lighting replacement project.
Jean explained that the street lighting project is a joint venture undertaken between the Saint Lucia government and KLED Capital to retrofit 22,000 lights on the island.
“Before the project started we had high pressure sodium lights (yellow lights) all over the island…and the intention is to remove these yellow lights and replace them with energy saving LED lights,” he said.
“Basically, there were two voltages of lights along the highways,” noted Jean. “We had 250 watts high pressure sodium lights and these are going to be replaced by 75 watts LED lights. And in the inner communities or the secondary roads, we had 70 watts high pressure sodium lights and these are going to be replaced with 21watts LED lights.”
The electrical engineer recalled that the project started “in earnest” last year, and so far, more than 14,000 lights have been replaced, amounting to approximately 80% of lights on the highway.
“So far, we have seen quite a bit of savings on that, although …that is not the sole purpose of the project. The high-pressure sodium lights have been fading for quite a while …and a lot of these sodium pressure lights had reached their lifetime,” he said.
Basically, Jean added, part of the project entails replacing these “old lights” with the LED lighting. “We expect to see about 60 to 70% savings at the end of this project. So far, we are realising savings of roughly about $350,000 monthly on the electricity bill pertaining to street lighting.”
Commenting on the pubic concerns relating to the capacity or volume of light derived from the LED street lights, Jean said, “With the high-pressure sodium lights with almost a 360-degree light blast …this means that these high-pressure sodium lights (yellow lights) project full circle 360 degrees.”
However, he noted, with the LED lights some “dark spots” will be found on the island, because these lights are not directional.
“We have been getting a lot of calls concerning this issue, and while it may appear that the lights are a bit dimmer …we intend to address it,” Jean explained.
The electrical engineer continued, “What we are going to do after the initial phase of the project …which is basically to remove the high-pressure sodium lights and replace them with LEDs.
“We have started that in the northern part of the island …where we are going to install additional LED lights to address these dark spots.”
Jean said, in addition to installing additional street lights to “address the dark spots” on island, there are a few areas such as the location between Belvedere, Canaries and also an area in Choiseul “where you find there is no low tension and for that treason we have never had stet lights in that area.”
Consequently, he said, “In the process of installing additional lights …we have engaged LUCELEC so that they can install low tension in that area and we can finally illuminate these sections of Saint Lucia.”
[R.A.]