How’s Our Lighting, Part 2

Two years ago, Yukon Energy partnered with the Energy Solutions Centre to install six Light Emitting Diode (LED) streetlights in Dawson City. We wanted to find out how they would perform in extreme winter conditions compared to the traditional street lights.

We learned that the annual energy used by the traditional High Pressure Sodium (HPS) streetlights is 416 kilowatt hours per light. The energy used by the LED lights is 150 kilowatt hours per light, a savings of 64 percent.

A public opinion survey conducted in Dawson City in February 2011 indicated that of the 76 responses, 87 percent like the LED lights and feel they provide the correct amount of light, and 89 percent support switching to LED streetlights.

While in principle we support moving to LED streetlights on a broader scale, we wanted to gather more information first. New products have come on the market since we installed the first LED lights in Dawson. Also, the Dawson LEDs are all the same type. We decided to do a follow up pilot to test the newest models from a few different brands. This will ensure that if we move ahead with installing LEDs throughout our service areas, we will know which is the best type for our northern climate.

We have selected Mendenhall as the area for our follow-up pilot.

In partnership with Yukon Electrical Company Limited, we recently installed six new LED streetlights (three different brands/types) at various spots throughout the Mendenhall subdivision. The map below shows exact locations. We will monitor and collect data from these lights for the rest of this winter.

If you are a Mendenhall resident, we’d also like to hear from you about the LEDs. Watch for a survey in your mailbox in a few months. However you don’t have to wait until then to tell us what you think of the lights. Contact us at any time with your comments.

We’ll post a summary of our results here on this blog and on our website.