By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Not unlike many households across the country, the city of Caribou is looking to save money by turning off some lights.
Members of the Caribou City Council approved turning off roughly 30 percent of the city’s streetlights, or about 185 lights of 550 total.
There were two parts to the decision, the first being the option of turning off 25 percent of lights with a cost savings of about $26,000.
“This removes 25 percent of lights in the city, with only a few removed from the downtown area, and those are located on the western edge of the downtown area of Sweden Street,” City Manager Austin Bleess explained to the council.
The second part of the discussion centered around another 6 percent of streetlights identified by the city manager, police chief, fire chief and public works director that could possibly be turned off; the extra 6 percent of lights would bring an estimated cost savings of about $7,000.
“If the council would like to remove [the 6 percent], I would recommend putting the savings into a reserve account to help us fund the purchase of LED streetlights in the future.
Though Bleess had spoken with Maine Public Service officials about the possibility of the company replacing older lights with more energy efficient ones, he was advised that the MPS’s payback for such a project wasn’t there.
“But if we own the streetlights, like we do with the ones in the downtown area, we could use [energy efficient streetlights] there,” he explained.
As Caribou has worked with the company TRANE on multiple energy efficiency projects, Bleess informed the board that he spoke with TRANE officials regarding preliminary options for replacing the more costly lighting.
The option that offered the most savings was the purchase of LED streetlights, which had about a 70 percent energy savings and an annual cost savings of approximately $60,000.
While discussion of possibly purchasing energy efficient streetlights is still in the early stages, the council agreed to turn off about 30 percent of Caribou’s streetlights with savings from 25 percent of the dark lights going back into the budget and 6 percent of the light savings being placed in a reserve account to possibly be used for LED upgrades.
The council also approved a request from the Parks and Recreation to move forward with a letter of intent to participate in the Maine Conservation Corps’ Veteran Community Leader Program, and discussed the Caribou Airport. For additional information on Monday’s council meeting, please see next week’s issue of the Aroostook Republican.
