City of Elgin
Converting All City Streetlights to LED
Introduction
The City of Elgin Public Works Department set out to replace all its street lights with zero maintenance, energy efficient LED lights. The municipality has approximately 6,500 existing streetlights which include a mix of both cobra head and ornamental fixtures.
Services The Will Group Offered:
Pre/Post Audit- Provided the City of Elgin with GIS Latitude coordinates and Longitude with ground truth on every assets inventory.
Lighting Design- Provided the City of Elgin with a design that meets RP-8 recommended practices for luminance, illuminance and small target visibility.
Product Specification- Provided the City of Elgin with products that tested above industry standards in optical, mechanical, and electrical design to ensure the products provide long term reliability and performance.
Local Manufacturing and Distribution- Provided the City of Elgin with local manufacturing, assembly, and packaging of LED fixtures and retrofit units.
Technology Project Management- Provided to City of Elgin with a software solution that monitors the project and installation in real time.
Intelligent City Solutions- Continue to provided the City of Elgin with an open platform that allows the city to repurpose it’s existing streetlighting into a “digital infrastructure” to extract data and deliver outcomes with applications that improve public services like transportation, parking and citizen safety.
Why LED Lighting
The City of Elgin’s streetlights were metal halide, and the city recognized the benefits of switching to LEDs. The LEDs more evenly distribute light, providing a clearer view of city roads. An LED light doesn’t suffer performance degradation the way halide lighting does, providing a consistent quality over its roughly 10-year lifetime with no lamp change outs. And LEDs use substantially less power than the halide lights, making them an economical and environmentally-friendly choice for The City of Elgin.
Why The City of Elgin Chose The Will Group
The Will Group prides itself in determining the correct fixture for the application, thus we do not believe that there is a one size fits all solution for retrofitting existing HID fixtures. The Will Group completed lighting analysis for each roadway classification throughout the City of Elgin to determine the proper lumen output to meet recommended luminance and illuminance requirements for local to major roadway/ street classifications. The Will Group then offered a wide selection of photometric options to meet The City of Elgin’s precise lighting needs while delivering reduced glare and improved light controls.
Converting Saved The City Money
The City of Elgin will save about $400,000 a year on their streetlighting energy costs.
The Solution:
There are many reasons why municipalities choose to convert to LED lighting. LED lighting has a longer lifespan, greater reliability, and no lamp change outs, which means substantially less maintenance. LED lights produce better color performance, improve safety have greater functionality and reduces energy consumption.
