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City of Calgary working to clear backlog of burnt out streetlights

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The trend of an increasing number of burnt out streetlights in Calgary should be reversed by new maintenance contracts, city officials said.

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The cancellation of a city-owned Enmax service contract, which it gave notice of termination last March, contributed to the backlog of repairs, said Michael Gray, the city’s head of street lighting design.

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“(Enmax) has been providing this service since the city of Calgary had its first street lights installed more than 130 years ago, so these delays were not unexpected,” he said in an email.

“The city also hired additional contractors during the transition period to help address the backlog caused by temporary capacity delays.”

The city did not disclose why ENMAX’s contract was terminated.

A city spokesman said the impact of the pandemic on crews and disruptions to equipment supplies for lighting fixtures and steel poles affected timely street light repairs, but as of Thursday work had been dispatched from Enmax. It should be partially offset by the Iconic Power Systems employment that we took over.

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“Like many things, the pandemic has impacted our ability to carry out streetlight repairs, resulting in a slightly increased response time to streetlight outages in 2022,” said City Mobility Operations. Manager Ravi Seera explains.

“Thankfully, the supply issue has been resolved. We believe the change in service provider will reduce our response time by mid-2023.”

About 1,000 of Calgary’s 104,000 street lights are not working, the city said, and Iconic has been working with Enmax over the past month to transition them into maintenance roles.

This compares with about 750 reports of streetlights burning out over the past few years, said the city’s Gray.

The cost of Iconic’s contract is similar to its previous deal with Enmax at approximately $5 million per year and will be reviewed annually.

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Street lighting accounts for about 12% of Calgary’s electricity consumption, and the switch from old high-pressure sodium lamps to LEDs, which began in 2014, has made them significantly more efficient, city officials said.

By reducing energy consumption by up to 50% and reducing maintenance costs by 25%, the retrofit saves about $5 million annually, they added.

The safety impact of missing lights depends on where the fault occurs, Gray said.

“Lights that burn out in areas with higher recommended light levels have higher priority to fix than lights in areas with lower recommended light levels,” he said.

Calgarians can report broken streetlights by visiting calgary.ca/streetlights.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn

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City of Calgary working to clear backlog of burnt out streetlights

Source link City of Calgary working to clear backlog of burnt out streetlights

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