SaskPower will be making changes to some streetlights in Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Lloydminster over the next several months.
Around 8,800 streetlights will be upgraded to Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting in 2019 from current High-Pressure Sodium Vapour fixtures. The investment for installing these new lights this year is at $2.8 million.
“LEDs use about 40 to 60 per cent less energy compared to the existing HPSV streetlights,” said SaskPower spokesperson Jordan Jackle.
“Converting all of Saskatchewan’s streetlights to LED will reduce the energy demand and Saskatchewan’s carbon footprint.”
Jackle pointed out how LED lights will offer other benefits outside of their decreased energy use including:
- A much longer life expectancy at 20 years compared to HPSV; and
- Less maintenance to allow crews to focus on higher priority infrastructure projects.
While the conversions this year are taking place in some of the province’s larger centres, other communities will be getting the new lights in the future as part of the lengthy project.
“We are upgrading streetlights right across the province and there are nearly 100,000 of them,” he said. “We expect to be doing that in the province over the next 10 years.”
SaskPower stated in a release that the conversions are planned for large towns, small city subdivisions, small town, villages, hamlets and rural areas.
The changes have already been made in heavy traffic corridors in both large and small cities, along with provincial and national parks.
