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Kamloops  

City of Kamloops, BC Hydro discuss shielding, trials for rollout of LED lighting

Talks continue over LEDs

A month after residents raised concerns over BC Hydro’s bright new LED bulbs, the City of Kamloops says it continues to meet with the utility company to discuss streetlight replacement.

BC Hydro has been switching burnt-out high pressure sodium bulbs for new LED lights — a move some residents say has resulted in harsh, white light spilling into their homes. The utility is also planning for a future roll-out of LED fixtures on their portion of city lights.

Jen Fretz, City of Kamloops’ civic operations director, told the civic operations committee on Tuesday the city is still pressing for BC Hydro to use shielding on streetlights with LED bulbs to prevent glare.

“We are meeting regularly with BC Hydro to talk about all of the details around both their maintenance program and their upcoming complete change out program,” Fretz said.

She said BC Hydro has committed to completing a trial program, working through any glaring issues before the replacement of 4,100 leased light fixtures throughout the city.

In response to a question from Coun. Denis Walsh, Fretz said there hasn’t been any specific locations earmarked for the trial yet.

“We're looking at different levels or different types of streets that we can use, so a collector and arterial, a local road and certain components of lights within those roads,” Fretz said.

She said the city is looking at working with BC Hydro’s contractor to have them adjust angles of lights and the angle of the streetlight arm to see if such measures can solve any potential brightness issues.

“We're still trying to work through this shielding discussion to see whether or not there's any movement on that,” Fretz said.

She said the city has replaced 2,400 of its 4,500 streetlights to LED’s over the past 10 years, and have been able to address residents’ concerns through changing fixture angles and installing shields.

“[Shielding] really works to disperse the lighting as opposed to having a very direct kind of glare,” Fretz said.

"The shields are very inexpensive. And there's also a variety of different ways to use the shields and different shields that can be used.”

Fretz said the city has monitored the level of light provided by LED fixtures over the years, and has noticed a 15 per cent decrease in the amount of light given off by the bulbs.

“This is one of the reasons why we're not confident yet in suggesting that BC Hydro use 3,000 Kelvin lights. We're just not sure that over time, the lights will continue to produce as much lighting as we would like them to,” Fretz said.

“We continue to meet with BC Hydro and advocate for the installation of shields, and so far that hasn't gained any ground, but we're still hopeful that it might in the future.”

Walsh and Mayor Ken Christian both had questions as to what causes the decrease in light — and whether the fixtures would continue to lose light.

Staff said the lost light is a known electronic issue with LED bulbs, with a maximum of 10 to 15 per cent decrease.

Walsh asked if residents — or a representative from a neighbourhood association — would be able to weigh in on lighting solutions.

Fretz said the city wants to engage with the community, but the lighting roll-out isn’t the city’s program to run. She said the city will continue to discuss the matter with BC Hydro, with their next meeting scheduled for the end of April.

“Certainly, we're involved in what's being done, but it's not driven by the city,” she said.

Fretz said it’s also difficult to ask for engagement on street lighting levels, as people have different preferences.

She said the City of Kamloops has set the “gold standard” for community engagement during the installation of its LED fixtures years ago.

“I kind of feel sorry for BC Hydro in the City of Kamloops because we started first, we started replacing HPS [high pressure sodium] light fixtures with LED. We shielded, and we worked with each and every resident and each and every individual light to make sure that it wasn't going to negatively impact people,” Fretz said.

“We've kind of set this the gold standard, if you will, for light replacement and customer service. And, again, poor BC Hydro, but they are now on the heels of what we have done. So that expectation has been set.”



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