Hastings Council aims to cut costs with energy efficient light bulbs

Hastings District council is investing in making its lights more energy efficient. Photo / Supplied

Hastings District Council is aiming to cut electricity costs by installing LED light bulbs to the city's street lights.

As part of a wider programme, Hastings is converting street lights across Hastings, Flaxmere and Havelock North to LED lights, with funding from the NZ Transport Agency.

The funding does not cover LED lights for "decorative luminaries" or street lights which are decorative as well as functional, of which there are more than 300 in the city.

At a meeting of the Works and Services Committee on Thursday, council decided to make minor modifications to the decorative lights, allowing them to install regular LED lights and receive the NZTA subsidy.

The conversion will cost almost $39,000 for installation.

Over 20 years it will cost the council $112,110, including the installation cost.

Keeping the current bulbs would cost the council over $398,000 over the next 20 years, meaning converting them will save council over $280,000.

There are roughly 60 decorative lights, on Woodlands Dr and the Kingsgate subdivision, which will not be included in the upgrades.

The lights in those two subdivisions are a modern style bowl light and Victorian style lamps respectively, which stand 4m – 4.5m high.

Example of the bowl style lights on Woodlands Dr, which cannot be updated to LED bulbs at this time. Photo / Supplied

LED lighting works best when the pole is around 8m high, and updating the Victorian poles to this height would cost too much.

The original recommendation from council officers deliberately excluded these two areas, however during the committee meeting this was changed at the request of Deputy Mayor Tania Kerr.

She said deliberately excluding them from the two subdivisions from the recommendation implied they would never update them to LED lights.

She said changing the recommendation slightly would allow the lights to be updated when it was appropriate to do so.

The issue was made by the committee, rather than council officers, due to the cost associated with the project, as well as the possibility of community reaction.

The aim of the decision is to reduce maintenance costs, electricity consumption and improve illumination on Hastings roads.

Excluding Woodlands and Kingsgate subdivision, 265 lights will be updated at this time.