KIUC’s Cost-Saving LED Street Light Retrofit Approved

The newest LED lights use about 70 percent less energy than traditional high-pressure sodium lights, providing significant savings to government agencies.

The county, which is KIUC’s largest customer, could potentially save $500,000 annually on its bills for 2,900 street lights. The state has 582 lights on Kaua`i.

Kaua`i will be the first Hawai`i island to switch virtually all of its street lights to LEDs.

KIUC will pay for the retrofitting work and recover the cost through a revised tariff with the county and state. The Public Utilities Commission approved the new tariff in an order issued Oct. 8.

The project is a result of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2013 by KIUC President and CEO David Bissell and Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr. The agreement commits the cooperative and local government to work together to reduce the island’s consumption of fossil fuel and lower the cost of energy for its residents.

“This project is a great example of the successful partnership we have with KIUC,” Mayor Carvalho said. “We look forward to working together on other ideas that will benefit everyone on Kaua`i and help us reach our goal of energy self-sufficiency.”

Work to retrofit the street lights will begin in 2016 and will be completed in about a year.

The new lights are controlled electronically, making it simple to adjust them by season and time of day and to turn individual lights on and off. The brightness level can be changed remotely and the system reports when a light is out, speeding up replacement.