Saving Money with Street Lights

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1 California Street Light Association LED RETROFITS Saving Money, Making Money, Optimizing Money, and Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Retrofitting Success Jean Bonander, Executive Director, CALSLA League/CSAC Public Works Officials Institute Wednesday, March 9, 2016 Saving Money with Street Lights Replace HPSV, LPSV, Mercury Halide with LED fixtures Frequency of Future Replacement, plus Maintenance & Operating Costs Adaptive Controls Lower Utility Costs Maybe 2 1

2 Making Money with Street Lights Adaptive Controls = Possible Money Making Opportunities Dimmable Light Decorative and Safety Options Sensors Mesh Networks Delivery Platforms Charging Stations 3 Optimizing Money with Street Lights LS 1: Street Lights owned by PG&E, SCE and SDG&E LS 2: Street Lights owned by Cities, Counties, Special Districts Why Own? Control of a valuable, invisible, permitted asset that citizens think local government already owns and operates After capital costs of acquisition, monthly fixed cost per street light drops by approximately 2/3, e.g., instead of $12/month, pay $4 per month Local government can adapt the luminaire and fixture for brightness, safety, decorative uses, and can attach value adding devices Can maintain and operate street lights with a third party contact or with existing staff at less than what utilities charge 4 2

3 Barriers to Saving, Making and Optimizing Money with Street Lights Acquisition Cost and Process Product Performance Standards Rate of Technology Innovation Utility Company Opposition and/or Disinterest Vendors Selling versus Vendors Informing Encryption Standards, Threats to the Grid Short term Grant and Rebate Funding for Long Term Capital Projects with Little Resource Available for Maintenance, Operations and the Unexpected 5 Other Not So Visible Barriers Tariffs and Rates Ratio between Facilities Charges and Kilowatt Hour Charges Time of Use (TOU) and Adaptive/Dimmable Metered Rates Add on rates for irrigation systems, sensors and charging stations Unsupportable Rate Requests Data Errors, Historical Inconsistency CPUC / Utility Rate Setting Process Every 3 year rate setting process takes too long, too cumbersome, too short term Unhealthy relationships between the CPUC and Investor Owned Utilities Street Lights = 1% of utility revenue we are not a big player in this game Enforcement Process Needs Improvement More Information Needed from Investor Owned Utilities Street Light Inventories aren t accurate, no easy way to resolve errors Utility billing and accounting systems are antiquated and uninformative Utilities don t share basic information proprietary or don t have it Revenue collected for maintenance, replacements, depreciation, salvage is not easily tracked or verified 6 3

4 How Can Cities and Counties Overcome Barriers and Save, Make and Optimize Money? Collaborate with other jurisdictions on acquisition, then operations, through existing or new authorities (JPAs) Negotiate with utilities for fair acquisition costs, terms and conditions everything is negotiable, even when the utility says it isn t Use sample specifications, RFPs, service contracts already produced in California 7 What Can Be Done to Cost Effectively Expedite Street Light Retrofits? Participate in the Department of Energy s Outdoor Lighting Accelerator Program (DOE OLA) it s free! Attend a CALSLA Annual Conference to learn more about rates, tariffs, negotiation strategies, pending legislation, new technologies and street light case studies it s free! Let s Talk about Building More Productive Relationships with the Utilities What s it going to take for the utilities to agree to fairly negotiate for street light acquisition with cities and counties that want to buy these assets? Let s design fair and realistic valuation methodologies for street lights not Replacement Cost New Less Depreciation (RCNLD). Let s encourage the utilities to become more transparent with data, reserve funds, billing and accounting system transactions, inventory and asset locations and evaluations regulated monopolies are supported by rate payers and tax payers. We want to know more about street lights so we can make better financial, quality of life and climate action planning decisions for California communities. 8 4

5 Resources CALSLA The only entity in the US that formally and regularly intervenes on behalf of cities and counties on rate cases. City of San Diego Specifications, RFPs, Collaboration with other jurisdictions, vendors, tech groups and service providers City of San Jose Initiated the Dimmable Pilot Program, Specifications, RFPs Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG) Regional Common Design and Specification Standards, Joint Analyses and Purchasing Agreements Marin General Services Agency (MGSA) Use of Eminent Domain for acquisition, RFPs and Agreements for Contract Maintenance Services 9 Thank You Questions or Comments? Jean A Bonander, Executive Director CALIFORNIA STREET LIGHT ASSOCIATION 56 Hacienda Drive, Tiburon CA (415) jean@calsla.org