The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the Town of Ramapo in Rockland County 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 $5 million upgrade will include the replacement of the town’s more than 2,000 streetlights with energy-saving LED fixtures. The project is expected to reduce the town’s greenhouse gas emissions from street lighting by 50 metric tons—the emissions equivalent of consuming more than 5,500 gallons of gasoline.
Additionally, Ramapo will add 1,549 new fixtures in underlit areas of the town to enhance public safety and improve pedestrian visibility.
“Ramapo’s new, energy-efficient street lighting system will curb carbon emissions and save taxpayer dollars,” said NYPA Acting President and CEO Justin E. Driscoll. “The Smart Street Lighting NY program makes it easy for municipalities to upgrade critical infrastructure, and helps New York achieve its ambitious climate and clean energy goals.”
“Our new LED streetlights will not only enhance visibility and safety but also pave the way towards a more sustainable future,” said Town of Ramapo Supervisor Michael Specht. “By upgrading all our lights, and adding more than 1,500 new fixtures, we will make our town brighter and safer for pedestrians and drivers alike. As we make our Ramapo streets brighter—we make our Ramapo future brighter as well.”
The town of Ramapo will also benefit from SMART nodes on the LED fixtures that will allow the town to control the lights, providing localized dimming options. Additionally, the town will also receive 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.
