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Hanover makes switch to LED lights

HANOVER — As the town looks to make savings where they can for the future, that also means moving to products and services that provide more efficiency. One place they are looking is at converting the lights in the town of Hanover to LED lights, through a New York State Electric & Gas sponsored direct installation program. The installation will be handled by Lime Energy in Buffalo.

Ben Titus, a service representative at Lime Energy, told the Town Board that following an energy assessment of the town’s facilities, Lime Energy decided that shifting and retrofitting old fixtures to LED lighting would provide the greatest opportunity for savings, at the lowest costs.

“The proposed equipment upgrades will qualify for subsidized installation through the NYSEG program,” Titus said. “NYSEG covers a portion of the installation cost with the customers being responsible for the other portion. Participation in this program provides economic and environmental benefits for their local community.”

Titus added that a common perk to the lights is the safety involved. With LED lighting lasting much longer than what Hanover has currently in place, it will make places safer all throughout the town of Hanover.

“The boat launch’s exterior lighting where the old technology has diminished over time, the new LEDs will make that a brighter and safer environment in the evenings,” Titus said.

As a turnkey program, Lime Energy handles all assessments, materials, labor, disposal, recycling and process, all serviced after installation. They also subcontract installations to local contractors, specifically authorized to perform the installations.

The plan for the replacements is to keep existing fixtures, while replacing the fluorescent tubes with LED direct voltage lamps. This will cut each 32-watt lamp to 14-watts, which would lead to a lot of savings for the Town of Hanover.

“Multiply that throughout the whole building and you’ll see pretty significant savings,” Titus said.

Titus said the total cost of the job would amount to $81,077.03 but with the number of lamps they are using for the town, Titus said they were able to secure a discount, lowering the cost to $61,577.03. On top of that, the NYSEG utility program will contribute an additional chunk of the cost, lowering the cost to the town even further, to $35,857.07. The investment that Hanover would be making on these lights would ultimately pay them back in the not-so-distant future.

“Making these improvements after these discounts and investments, the average savings to investment ratio is over 3.5,” Titus said. “And the simple payback, depending on the project, ranges from one to five years.”

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